| last updated:02 Aug 2004 10:27 UK time |
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| JOS Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 01 Aug 2004) | View Other Weeks |
| Geeks and cars | Sun 01 Aug | Ramu Karyat |
| Recently I have noticed a topic called what cars geeks drive ?". What according to you is the definition of geek ? Are you a geek ? |
| Sun 01 Aug | ...but ozzy osbourne is. | A geek is someone who bites the heads off of chickens. I have never done this, so I am not a geek. |
| Software Quality | Sun 01 Aug | Afficianado of Quality Goods |
| I always take the pro-america stance in these debates about offshoring: Those overseas guys dont know what they are doing! But today I realized that almost all of my favorite pieces of software that I use regularly were made outside the US by foreigners. The software is more stable, has a better UI, has more of the features I want. Cost is affordable too. Examples - all the music software and softsynths I use. I have a couple music programs made in the US and they are of poor stability and not very efficient so I never use them. This is about $10,000 worth of software altogether. My web browser is made overseas. My email client is made overseas. My cell phone is made overseas. All the good software seems to be made overseas! Stuff I have made in the US is unstable, bloated and difficult to use. What if what happened to Detroit were to happen to Silicon Valley? Eh, better think fast because my friends, it has already happened. Oh and just as a point of interest, none of this software I like is made in India or China. But I do think the fact that american software is of such terribly poor quality gives India a chance to come in and compete in quality. Unfortunately, they are competing on price instead. Note that Japan was no threat to the US automotive industry until they stopped competing on price and started competing on quality. Most americans will pay good money for software that does what it says it does, is stable and fast and easy to use. There is a real opportunity here. The US software industry is a basket case of incompetant prima donnas, braggarts, low quality and overpriced goods. This is a great chance for people to jump in and take over the market. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Mr.Analogy | Read : The innovator's Solution Making an 'almost good enough' product leaves a company room to improve. Making a good enough product risks 'overserving the customer'. The customer loves it, but the company has no room to improve. They either get disrupted by someone offering a 'just good enough' but cheaper product or thier product gets commoditized (competition). So... a 'great product' that completely satisfiest the customer is great for the customer, but sucks for the company. Look at Ecco Pro. they delivered a superior product back in the 90s. It's still better than most PIMs. But the company is out of business. In the end, that hurts the customer it just takes longer. However, if, as you say, the offshore folks are making better stuff then MORE POWER TO THEM. I'd love to hire ecoomical offshore talent. Or I'd like them to make a good PIM. I'll buy it in a second. |
| How do you know when you can trust someone? | Sun 01 Aug | The Cream in the Pie |
| I have a basic question. This is a dog eat dog world. Your friends will be your friends until someone pays them better. Is the world so mechanic that people will only trust you while their interests are aligned with yours? Dont people keep their promises any longer? How can you find out if someone is trustworthy? |
| Sun 01 Aug | www.marktaw.com | In watching the Democratic National Convention, one commentor was asked about whether or not John Kerry's past, particularly his military service, should come in to play, and the answer was - the best way to tell what someone will be like, is by their past behaviour. |
| Sun 01 Aug | AnonAnonAnon | If you have to ask, the probably are not. Or... MORE likely is you are not. Today, a man is bound by his lawyer not his word. I see examples here at least a couple of times a month 'I signed a bad contract.' 'I agreed to do this and now want out...' etc. If you want to trust someone you must first be trustworthy. We all experience the dog-eat-dog mentality and if honest with ourselves feel slighted when someone takes advantage and gets ahead. While it 'will all work out in the end' is a good philosophy, it is hard to swallow. Make your word, your bond and you can expect the same of others. Make yourself a trustworthy person and you can expect it of others. |
| Sun 01 Aug | . | There's an old saying: "You can't cheat an honest man". If you go in with your eyes open and never kid yourself, it's hard to be conned by someone else. |
| Sun 01 Aug | anony coward | In the book "I heard You Paint Houses" (about the guy who claims he shot Jimmy Hoffa) there's an interesting comment. The hitman was a good friend of Hoffa's; when asked why he had agreed to kill his friend, he said "If I didn't do it, Jimmy would still be just as dead, and I'd be dead too". |
| Sun 01 Aug | Tom H | 'best way to tell what someone will be like, is by their past behaviour' He signed up for the Navy and went to Vietnam, then came home and became and anti-war protester with Jane Fonda. I'm not sure what I can tell about him as a presidential candidate from that. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Helpful hinter | 'I'm not sure what I can tell about him as a presidential candidate from that. ' Um, maybe that you're guaranteed that Kerry won't be a president who avoided military service himself yet adopts a doctrine of 'preemptive' war. |
| Handling client contract negotiations | Sun 01 Aug | Bored Bystander |
| This is directed to anyone here who works as an independent contractor. How do you handle the situation where the client wants you to sign some ponderous pile of rubbish that is utterly one-sided? I have in hand possible contract work: a short term remote project amounting to $5K or less. One one hand I could just sign whatever crap they present me with, under the assumption that they are a small niche player with limited funds located a long distance away, and not worry about it. However, stuff happens, and I dont like leaving bread crumbs of careless dealings around. Among the many pleasantries in this companys contract: --- Indemnification. Contractor shall defend and/or indemnify and hold harmless the Corporation from and against any claim and damage resulting from any such act or failure to act by Contractor in excess of or contrary to the Corporations instruction or normal and ordinary business practices of similarly situated individuals. In addition, Contractor shall indemnify and hold the Corporation harmless against any liability for damages or other claims, including reasonable legal expenses and costs incurred by the Corporation, with respect to any alleged violations of Contractors duties to the Corporation as outlined in this Agreement. All costs incurred by the Corporation with respect to any such claims shall be promptly reimbursed by Contractor within fifteen (15) days after receipt of an invoice from the Corporation. --- I have *NEVER* been asked to assume liabilities for a client!! Do any of you indys even bother with clients that push off language like this? Ive already had two go rounds with them and they are clinging to this repulsive clause like a Rottweiler... |
| Sun 01 Aug | no name | Not worth the risk. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Inside Job | Bored, definitely dodgy. It should be the other way around. The corporation (employer) is normally the one that indemnifies the employee. Sometimes this type of language is a carry-over where corporations are used to dealing with BIG 'contractors,' such as where they pay $5 million to get something done. This is particularly prevalent when dealing with government, but of course that's also where the danger comes, because citizens are forever complaining about the way a government department exercised its responsibilities, and in many cases demanding compensation. Increase the contract fee to $500,000 or walk. |
| Sun 01 Aug | www.marktaw.com | Signing something like this is basically inviting a lawsuit. It may not hold up in court, but there will be legal fees if they sue you. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Tom Vu | Black out that stuff and sign it. It's better to cover your bases in case something happens. |
| Sun 01 Aug | TheGeezer | Sounds risky. How well do you know the client? If it's a remote development job then I suspect not particularly well. That being the case, politely pass on their contract. Something better will come along. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Mark Wilson | I received a contract with that type of language in it last year. I replaced it with the following and they accepted my changes:
Anything herein to the contrary notwithstanding, Contractor’s aggregate liability from any and all causes related to the subject matter of this Agreement shall be limited to money damages directly and proximately caused by Contractor in an amount not to exceed, as applicable, the amount paid by |
| Sun 01 Aug | Scot | Perhaps overly simplistic but... since it's a negotiation simply put a price on it and let them take it out if the price is unacceptable :-) |
| Sun 01 Aug | anony coward | This isn't a good place to ask legal advice. If the work isn't worth having the contract reviewed by a lawyer then walk away. That said (and the obligatory IMNAL), as I read it all they want you to sign is that they are not responsible for something you do without their direction, nor are they responsible for you not doing something they directed you to. It sounds reasonable to me, they're not responsible for your screw-ups; just make sure you get the requirements in writing and only do what's written. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Mr.Analogy | Seems to me that you should NEVER be responsible for more damages $$ than they paid you. That limits your risk. And why take a job for $x if you could be on the hook for $100x |
| Sun 01 Aug | Bored Bystander | Guys, thanks for the *OPINIONS* which I take as such! I wasn't asking legal advice, merely making sure that my eyes weren't deceiving me and that I was not amplifying the meaning of this paragraph. It appears that I wasn't. It goes. |
| Free Online Project Plannning | Sun 01 Aug | No BS |
| Ive taken on a database development project (outside of my day-job) and will probably take on a couple more consultants during the lifetime of the project. Ive realised the need for a good project planning/management system and have seen several good ones on the web (e.g. www.project.net). Just wondering if there are any good free ones out there that you guys may have come across? |
| Sun 01 Aug | anon | Basecamp ( http://www.basecamphq.com/ ) by 37Signals. |
| Sun 01 Aug | kc | dotproject! That's what I use and contribute to. |
| A form with lots of controls | Sun 01 Aug | Jim |
| I have a paper form that needs to be reproduced on screen. This is for a client with low end PCs and they dont seem to want to upgrade the hardware. About 300MHZ and lower with Win95 and some Win98. Anyway the form will have about 400 label and edit controls on it. In my tests when I place even 100 edit controls on a VB form it is "jerky" when it scrolls. That is the whole window scrolls in the MDI app. So I need a way to fix the jerkiness of the form. I am using VB and might be able to use C++. Any ideas would be appreciated. |
| Sun 01 Aug | no name | Why don't you use multiple forms in a 'wizard' style? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Jim | That is what I suggested to the client but they want to see the "entire 'official' form" on the screen so I have to do my best to give 'em what they want. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Li-fan Chen | I think what they want is something they can use, and you have to educate them. However, do it exactly as they prescribed, and get them to sign their decisions. So when the head rolls and they come back asking for a different design (that wizard idea) you'll look like a winner. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Li-fan Chen | Another thing you can do: do both (wizard and wizard less)... allow users to switch between the two using an undocumented F key. Then log who likes what best. Let's you build a case to help convince them to actually let the designing to the designer. |
| Sun 01 Aug | John Ridout | I don't know if it will make a difference but have you tried using the lightweight controls? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Jim | I'm not arguing with you on the wizard thing but I am still looking for ways to get a form with a ton of controls to scroll smoothly. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Matt Conrad | IIRC, you are limited to 255 controls on a VB 6 form. A quick check online sees several references to this, so it's probably for real. Perhaps you can get around that with control arrays, but I wouldn't do it unless the arrays made sense in their own right. Well, maybe you could array all your labels if they never change. Anyway, your problem may be worse than you think. I'd look at setting up some paging, or something like that. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Jim | What do you mean by "lightweight controls" John? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Ankur | Embed a WebControl in your VB app and use an HTML form? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Jim | That's interesting Ankur but I'm not familiar with getting data off of HTML forms on embedded webcontrol's. Any ideas? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard | >> Any ideas? Dump this client because they are obviously too obtuse to benefit from the superior intellect that you espouse to embue upon them. Some people (most) just cannot be helped. The sooner you accept this hard learned fact, the sooner you can become at peace with the world--and yourself. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Chris Tavares | You're going to need to reduce the number of controls; there's no way around it. The HTML control is an option, but with that number of inputs I wouldn't be surpised if the webbrowser control also starts to creak. How far from a table is the form? Could you use a single grid control with the right set of styles & read-only settings? You could put a lot of fields on the screen in only one control that way. -Chris |
| Sun 01 Aug | HTH | Just an idea to play around with ... What about grouping your widgets in an ActiveX control? This the form itself isn't rendering 100 controls ... just 4 or 5 ActiveX controls ... which in turn render ~ 20 widgets each. Like I said, just an idea to possibly play around with ... |
| Sun 01 Aug | Patrik | Jim, I feel your pain. Instead of a wizard, have you tried just different tabs, with each section of the official form on one tab each, and then bring them a function that allows them you view the entire form that looks the way God intended. Once they use it they will hopefully understand that the data entry form is a matter of workflow in the appliation, and the form viewer can then present the data in a way they are used to view it - regardless of them not entering the data in the actual form. Make it easy to switch between the two, Edit/View forms so they can switch back and forth to their hearts content. Good luck. |
| Sun 01 Aug | no name | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard, Wow, what an insightful thought! I hope there are more software developers like you in the world. It will bring more business to me :) |
| Sun 01 Aug | Wayne | It's easy to get data to/from the HTML control. Just reference add a reference to the MS HTML Object Model and do it like this: Dim oEl as HTMLInputTextElement Dim sText as String Set oEl = WebBrowserControl.document.getElementByID('txtBoxID') sText = oEl.value Personally, I think you'll have an easier time doing a form like this in HTML since there are many more layout options such as using Tables and Div tags to organize the page. At least test it out by making a page with 100 controls on it (just do a bunch of text boxes) and open it right in IE on a machine with the target specs to see how it reacts. |
| Sun 01 Aug | no name | http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=88178&ixReplies=22 |
| Sun 01 Aug | Chris Altmann | Does it have to scroll continuously? You could do it wizard style using a vertical scrollbar to move from page to page and have keyboard focus at the ends of each page switch pages automagically. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Tom H | Here's a trick that sometimes works. Implement it the way you suggested (as multiple tabs or pages). Tell the client it's just a prototype you put together to test out the various controls and that they'll get the 'official' form as soon as you get everything working smoothly (make sure you have a Print option that prints the entire form the way they want to see it). Let them play with it for a while to get used to it. If they still insist on having it all on one page at least you'll have bought some time. But usually once they see it they understand that tabs or multiple pages is fine. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Bored Bystander | I designed applications for one client that fit this description. (think: government/bureaucratic forms.) The performance issue was even more severe with Windows 3.x which was the original platform for the app. What I did was to develop a way to use one edit control that I repositioned on every chance of focus. The problem then turned into one of making the window and the edit control emulate a more conventional 'many-control' approach. This included: - Maintaining an 'edit buffer' data structure that contained the data under edit. When the edit is repositioned, the data in the edit needs to be written to the corresponding buffer location; and the data corresponding to the new edit location needs to be loaded into the edit control. - Capturing all keystrokes that a user would reasonably expect to be able to change focus of the control. - Triggering on mouse down events and mapping mouse clicks on edit locations to data entry locations. It was non trivial but straightforward programming. I recommend using C++ to develop a window class that implements this behavior in a generic way. |
| Sun 01 Aug | no name | i don't know how the form looks but if it's very simple you may be able to recreate in excel, and add some macro, etc. or you can try access? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Kyralessa | If they really want an on-screen form that looks just like a paper form, have you considered using Acrobat Forms? |
| Sun 01 Aug | yet another anon | I've used Excel for a form that had about 75 controls and it worked pretty well. Here's what I did: - Set the column width to 4 for all columns and merge cells as needed for input a label fields. - Define names for all entry field ranges. - Shade the cells for the label fields. - Apply worksheet protection and unlock only the cells for entry fields. - Hide the row and columns headers. - Hide the grid lines. - Set the move after enter direction to across. - Hide the standard toolbars and create a custom toolbar. - Code all database access, validation, and view customization in VBA. The biggest drawback is the max length for cell contents. I think it's 255 characters. I used the Excel form controls in several places to overcome this. Going into it I thought it was going to turn out kludgy, but it actually didn't look half bad. Moreover, the users liked it. |
| Sun 01 Aug | TheGeezer | Just on the subject of hideous looking forms, has anyone ever been to a hotel/dentist/auto-electrician and noticed them still (to this day) using a hacked-together MS Access 2.0 application with garish green forms and zillions of UI controls on Windows 95 for running their core reservation/billing system? Seriously, what monkeys can earn a living off writing that sort of stuff and peddling it to (gullible?!) customers? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Ankur | Probably the hotel/dentist/auto-electrician's kid. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Jonny Boy | Tab control ? Frames ? Containers ? I don't see this as difficult at all... I have a client where we have a lot more than 100 controls. Some are control arrays but to serve a specific purpose, others are just plain old controls. I make use of tabs, frames, and various functions to make it look like its all one screen. Give it a shot!!! |
| best days of your life? | Sun 01 Aug | Modern Cowboy |
| I saw a weird Wal-Mart ad today. In it, a mother says to her college daughter, These are the best days of your life. The daughter replies, I hope so. Im not sure what I hope so is supposed to mean. She hopes her life doesnt get any better? Anyway, do you feel your days as an undergraduate were the best days of your life? Ive been out of school for three years and I miss it. Miss being relatively carefree, miss learning all the time, miss all the women and parties. Do you feel your life keeps getting better as you get older or did it peak somewhere? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Eric Debois | While I had a great deal of fun in college, I dont miss it. Life keeps changing, I keep changing with it. And, it keeps getting better in many, if not most ways. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Brad | I miss the academic environment, so much so that I've contemplated going back for a PhD, although everyone I know who is in or has been through a PhD program has advised against it. Still, my undergrad days certainly weren't carefree. Sure, a lot of fun was had, but the stress levels were consistently higher then than they have been since. One feeling I do not miss is that I could never truly relax because there was *always* something I should have been working on or studying. [I remember at my first job, fresh out of college, I mentioned to my manager that I found school to be very stressful, and she said that work was more so. I scoffed at this, and 11 years later I stick with my scoff.] Anyway, the attraction of being in an academic environment, at least for me was two-fold: constant learning and being surrounded by bright people. There is one other environment I've been in (a couple times now) that is similar: a startup. I think some of my best times have been while I've been involved in startups (at least, in the early days...the second startup started becoming much less fun after we grew past 30 or 40 people...but that's a whole 'nother topic). So the short answer is: it doesn't have to be. For me, it's just a matter of being in a challenging environment, solving interesting problems with bright/cool people, and I'm happy. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Flasher T | As a current undergraduate (starting my third and final year of BA studies), let me tell you, these days are anything but carefree. First of all, you're doing tons of work and not earning any money with it. Getting payed makes your attitude to a lot of things *way* better. More importantly, I both know that I am significantly better than my classmates (I try to convince myself otherwise and fail regularly) and know that I can get a good job any given, uh, week if I don't have the temporal and geographical commitments of college setting me back - the university is in a small town and most of the jobs are in a big town. Also, if I screw up here, that's going to impact my life in a very bad way, whereas if I get fired or quit a job, I'll find another one - if all else fails I can always become a trucker and earn tons of cash sitting next to my bed and looking out the window all day. Of course, I'm not typical - I was already good when I went to college and I'm only here for the diploma. |
| Sun 01 Aug | You stupid kid ... | 'I both know that I am significantly better than my classmates' At CS and not English, correct? |
| Sun 01 Aug | No BS | Best days of my life? maybe....This was the pattern of my college life for all 4.5 years of it. First few weeks of semester, worry about how i'm going to pay for school, meet new chicks, get textbooks after i've happened on the money some how. catch up to the rest of the class 'cos I always missed the first week of school for all 9 semesters to sort out admin. / tuition issues Midway through the semester - i know who my friends are, which chicks are worth the effort, who's the smart kid in class who'll help me with my coding/calculus/numerical analysis etc. which classes are going to be 'Easy A's ' so I can skip them and do homework for the not so easy ones. where to get free food and free entertainment. Drawing to the end of the semester - sucking up to proffessors for whom I've done sub-standard/no work so I can make it out of the class with a 'C' for completion. wrapping up my easy A classes so I don't have to take the final and use the precious last couple of weeks to finish that killer project that should have taken all semester and a team of 4 but for some reason it's been left to the last week and you're the only team member left. And yes finals and my famous phrase just before an exam while other students are paging through their 400 page text books and i'm holding my can of mountain dew and putting formulas in my TI-85...'If I don't know it by now, there's no way I'll learn it in the next five minutes so screw the text book!' And then there was summer. interning at startups, doing research for profs who thought they were the next nobel prize winners, road trips, hot chicks in the latest abercrombie crap. yep, those were good days... |
| Sun 01 Aug | www.marktaw.com | About a year ago here there were a couple of threads on work & regrets & the vast majority of people said they simply stopped having fun after college. I wish I could dig them up. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Tom | Mr T's English seems acceptable, even if his spelling is a bit off and he happens to go to university with apparent thickies. What mistake are you thinking of? (Mind you I would probably use 'I know both that... and that...' ('that' needs higher precendce in English 2.0 :) rather than the somewhat-tortured-to-these-ears 'I both know that... and know that...'.) |
| Sun 01 Aug | Tom | The reader should use their skill and judgement to work out what common English word I have mangled into "precendce". |
| Sun 01 Aug | Flasher T | As a matter of fact I'm not a programmer, hence my long-standing status as a lurker - I am in fact an English major, so mr. Kid can piss off. :P At this point I'm doing some online grunt work that pays fairly well for the time I put in, and freelance for http://www.baltictimes.com. People I go to uni with are fairly smart - these are the top 20 out of 400 applicants for the major of English language and literature, it's just that I seem to be naturally insanely good at English. Got the top grade on the entrance exam, 85.5% on a test they said was designed to put the best people at 80%. I've also been a semi-pro journalist (not living off it but writing for proper media) since I was 11. I have worked at a software vendor though, and I enjoy Joel's writings for the general common sense value rather than just its relevance to the programming world. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Rob | Yes, even though at the end of college I was getting really sick of it, and wanted to move out into the real world, now that I am in the real world, I want to go back. Of course, the grass is always greener... I moved across the country for a programming job. I have been crunching on projects for the last 2 years. During the crunchtime you lose any sort of social life. And during the downtime you are too tired to resume it. I just sit at home in front of my computer in my spare time. I don't even know anybody in this town really. In college I had tons of friends. I would go out every weekend. I was depressed then too, for sure... but now it seems like a cakewalk. I definitely miss the women. Just being around dudes all the time really wears on you. When you're a programmer you don't much chance to work with women on anything. In college I lived with women like every year in apartments, so they would always have their friends over and stuff... I keep having this plan to just go back to college and party and redo it all... it would be so easy. : ) |
| Sun 01 Aug | Christopher Wells | > Anyway, do you feel your days as an undergraduate were the best days of your life? No: working on problems that had already been solved by generations of undergraduates before me seemed like a waste of time. > Do you feel your life keeps getting better as you get older or did it peak somewhere? It has highs and lows. I like learning new things, having new (pleasant) experiences as well as repeating already-known (pleasant) experiences. Because I keep learning new things, in that way it keeps getting better. |
| Sun 01 Aug | . | People who are insanely good at English generally spell paid correctly. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Mr.Analogy | Optimist: 'This is the worst day of my life' Pessimist: 'No. It isn't'. |
| Sun 01 Aug | AnonAnonAnon | I always hope tomorrow improves on today. Better? What does 'better' mean? In university I had a girlfriend and family support. It was great not having the responsibility of life while learning. However, it was also great to get that first job, then improvements, promotions, go out on my own. Add to that a wife, home, children. I am with the OP, I hope this is not the best day of my life and short of it ending, or something equally tragic, it will not be. |
| Sun 01 Aug | karthik | I dont miss anything. Everything has sucked so far. |
| Longhorn Visual Basic compatibility | Sun 01 Aug | karthik |
| I assume that Microsoft will release a version of Visual Basic once Longhorn releases. Will it also allow you to build executables for the old operating systems -> Windows 95,98, 2000,XP etc.? If it does not, then there is a huge market potential here. Maybe Delphi/Gupta/Powerbuilder can step in. Even if 20-30 million refuse to upgrade to Longhorn, there is a lot of money waiting to be made. |
| Sun 01 Aug | karthik | When i say executables, i mean 'Can Visual Basic Longhorn run on old OS's?'. Its all right if its .NET |
| Sun 01 Aug | Almost Anonymous | 'I assume that Microsoft will release a version of Visual Basic once Longhorn releases. ' Why would they do that? Old Visual Basic applications will run on Longhorn just fine. And VB as been EOL'd in favour of .NET. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Craig | VB6 is dead, there will be no updates. VB.NET will definitely be updated but software developed with it wont run on Win95 and probably 98/ME soon. Your best option is to use Delphi which is still releasing Win32 versions as well as .NET versions of the compiler. That would provide the easiest upgrade path. |
| Sun 01 Aug | bui van hai | hi you can find for me job web and visual basic online . i can a few money ,about 10$ a mouth thank! |
| Sun 01 Aug | Iago | The real question is, will Visual Basic.NET Longhorn Edition (or whatever they choose to call it) make it easy to write 'fat GUIs' that can run natively in Avalon *and* the old S.W.F. or GDI? As far as the things VB is mostly used for are concerned, Longhorn is about the GUI. And I seriously doubt we're going to see Avalon backported to XP... |
| Sun 01 Aug | Please stay informed more than you currently do. Thank you for your support. | >> 'VB6 is dead, there will be no updates.' Oh really... Is that why Microsoft released Service Pack 6 for it this March... |
| Sun 01 Aug | I'd like to buy a clue, Pat. | == 'VB6 is dead, there will be no updates.' == What kind of ignorant person thinks this? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Almost Anonymous | Well there will not be a VB 7.0.. which I believe it was the person meant by "no significant updates". |
| Sun 01 Aug | Kyralessa | 'VB6 is dead' <> 'there will be no updates' I've heard the same about DAO: 'DAO is dead.' Funny, my Access DBs that use DAO still work just fine. I guess that we help the market, though, if as soon as a tool is mature and stable we declare it 'dead' and move on to the Next Big Thing. (For the record, though, I prefer VB .NET to VB6.) |
| Sun 01 Aug | AllanL5 | I thought there was going to be an update to VB6 in VB 2005 -- that they were going to support the 'older' VB6-ish object model. Not so? |
| Sun 01 Aug | TheGeezer | Either way, I just wish someone would take that tired old dog of a language- VB6 - to the knackers yard and put it out of it's misery! |
| How can a progammer make some $$$ on the side? | Sun 01 Aug | CaptainNeedSomeExtraDough |
| Im a .NET programmer who has done some side work in the past to pick up extra cash as needed. Im looking to do the same again, but Im hoping to find something else to do besides the usual hourly contract coding gigs on evenings and nights. Any ideas ??? Heres some things Ive thought of , not sure if there is a market for any of the following: Creating light/medium weight technical documentation that requires a programmers knowledge? Teaching a class at the local community college or distance learning college Reviewing code/technical documentation or book manuscripts. Any other ideas besides these? |
| Sun 01 Aug | CaptainNeedSomeExtraDough | Oh, here is another one: Writing articles for magazines that pay. |
| Sun 01 Aug | PopCulture | i like how you casually throw in 'teach a college course'. theres all sorts of certs you need to get just to teach preschool... its just not that easy. If you want instant gratification, you can tutor undergrad (or grad) students for $25 an hour; get a small group at a lower rate and divide the costs between 2-5 kids and your looking at $50-100/hour for teaching people your hobby... VERY easy to do if you have a laptop and live near a WiFi enabled college town or a hotspot enabled starbucks take out an ad in the college newspaper or put up fliers. |
| Sun 01 Aug | one programmer's opinion | Teaching - check with your local state run schools. Many states now require their part-time instructors to have an appropriate Masters degree. Documentation - ask this question at the technical writing website (techwhirl.com?). Reviewing books - ask this question where book authors post such as Apress' (a book publisher) forum. I suppose you could try and compete with the low bidders at online freelance sites such as rentacoder or create a shareware program. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Stephen Jones | Sell your body. It's no different from what you are doing in your day job, good exercise, and means that you will have to shower and change clothes every now and again. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Craig | I think teaching would be the easiest to pick up and make money on the side. Writing a book of sorts is very time consuming and risky, and very few authors, especially in IT circles, make any money from it. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Philo | 'Teaching - check with your local state run schools. Many states now require their part-time instructors to have an appropriate Masters degree.' [sigh] Because, of course, you can't teach loops and variables until you've had two more years of school and written a dissertation on neural nets. (and it would be best if those two years were taken at a state run school, filling their coffers) Philo |
| Sun 01 Aug | Anonx | On the teaching... I knew an office admin who taught MS office products on the weekend. I think she taught to groups. I believe she said she would net around 400 a day for it. Can't remember if she put the course together or if she bought a package to teach from. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Flasher T | The thing about technical writing is, any sort of serious vendor will want their writer to have an in-depth knowledge of the product, and that is inconsistent with a part-time gig. I did tech writing for nine months alongside college, and when I decided to quit, it was a serious problem for the company. |
| Sun 01 Aug | dot who has tutored | In California, community college teachers, even part-timers, have to have a master's degree or else bachelor's and significant industry experience. Tutoring is not bad. If you can hook up with a commercial tutoring company, you can get decent money that way also. Not as good as running your own groups of course. Tutoring would get you $25 to $50 at college level. $25/hour is not unheard of even tutoring for high school classes. It helps if you can get your hands on the books that the tutorees will be using. Math also is in demand. Maybe more demand than CS but it is an uphill battle sometimes. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Tim Sullivan | There are a few things. Here are some that I did: 1) Develop a component (.NET, COM, VCL, whatever) or library of code, and sell it online. I made some /great/ supplimental income over a number of years before I got tired of it. 2) Develop a small application that does one thing really well, and sell it online. 3) Do some light computer consulting for friends and their friends. 4) Forget teaching college - look to corporate training. A /lot/ of these companies have high trainer turnovers. Getting a day or two a week might be easy, though they don't pay a lot. I did this full time for /years/, and it helped immensely with user interface design, finding out what users like and hate, as well as using every horizontal software product out there from MS Office to Lotus Notes. 5) Find all your old crap, the stuff that you'll never really use no matter how much you think otherwise, and put it all on EBay. |
| Sun 01 Aug | AllanL5 | Check your employment agreement. Certain employers write them such that any 'side' work you get must not compete with your day job. |
| Regression Analysis | Sun 01 Aug | bankstrong |
| Im looking to incorporate a fancy type of regression analysis (stepwise) in a new software package (implemented in VB). Im investigating 3rd party components from SPSS, SAS, and fmsinc.com. Id rather buy than create. Does anyone have other suggestions for good places to purchase statistical components? Mike |
| Sun 01 Aug | Someone Else | I use SPlus, and they even have an opensource clone named R (by Gnu). R is great for software components. |
| Sun 01 Aug | anony coward | Here's one package, the page has a bunch of links to others as well: http://salstat.sourceforge.net/index.php?features |
| Sun 01 Aug | bankstrong | If I understand the links properly (I'm not at the same programming level as most people here), they are focused on web development and are open-source. I need to integrate the code into my license-protected, standalone PC software. Thanks, Mike |
| Parser generators--does anyone use them? | Sat 31 Jul | Jesus to Kimo: Take Steroids |
| If you had to write some general-purpose parsing code, code to, say, parse some MIME fields or an *.ini file into memory, would you go ahead and use a parser generator like Bison, or would you do it all by hand? Does the language matter? I.e., would you use a parser generator with C or C++ but not with Perl? |
| Sat 31 Jul | Kalani | Use them? I make them! :) Yes they're still important even if you use Perl. Look on CPAN and you'll find plenty of LL(k), LALR, and General LR parser generator projects. Perl makes it easy for the programmer to define regular grammars (ie: in regular expressions), but as anybody will tell you, the set of languages defined by regular grammars is a proper subset of the languages defined by the context-free grammars. For very simple text formats (like Lisp S-expressions), I typically implement a parser in a compact finite-state automaton (or push-down automaton) -- and I've got a simple framework for making those too. For parsing programming languages or set constraints (e.g.: SQL), a CFG-based parser is invaluable. If you're using C++, you might try boost's LL(k) parser generator library ('Spirit'). If the grammar you have in mind is inseparably left-recursive or ambiguous, you'll need to look at other types of parser generators. The General LR parsers (e.g.: Earley, Tomita) will parse any CFG but they can be less efficient than necessary. I've written a version of Earley's parser as my 'catch-all' parser and am working on some grammar analysis stuff to conditionally return LL(k) or LALR parsers if possible. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Michael Moser | For a think like INI files, i wouldn't bother with YACC; i guess it is harder to debug YACC rules (shift reduct conflicts; insert proper errror handling; bother with C languager bindings etc..) than to write some simple parsing code. For more complex grammars there is Visual Parse++ - an IDE that makes debugging of rewriting/production rules easy. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Craig | We have used boost "spirit" extensivly, it's a great tool. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Katie Lucas | All the time. Simple files -- throw it through a suitable Lexer. More complex stuff I use YACC for. I've got all the fixes sorted out for putting multiple parsers into the same object code and so on... Have a whole bundle of C++ classes for supporting the parser so the action parts of the statements are minimal. Once you've got a good toolkit to work with, it's all superb. Oh -- the YACC errors get a lot easier to fix with experience, BTW. You end up with a sort of mental model of what sets it off whinging and you can build the grammar to avoid them. |
| Sun 01 Aug | anony coward | Make sure you aren't reinventing the wheel, things like ini and MIME parsers are commonly available: http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-ConfigParser.html http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-email.html |
| Sun 01 Aug | dot who has tutored | Antlr (which can generate Java and C++ parsers) comes with grammers for Java, XML, HTML, etc. And for lex/yacc (or flex/bison), grammers are available for just about anything. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Chris Tavares | I used YACC to parse email addresses. Worked out very well, it translated almost directly from the RFC, and the resulting code handled ALL possible internet email addresses, which is impossible with regexes. Would have been a lot harder without the tool. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Pakter | Is it easy to generate a "clean" C++ parser ? I am generally not very enthusiastic about Yacc-generated code. Should I have a look at spirit then ? |
| Joel and Eric on Paul Graham's latest? | Sat 31 Jul | Crimson |
| What do you guys think about it? I know the situation is such that you may not be willing to give a true opinion. ;) |
| Sat 31 Jul | Matthew Lock | Have they commented on Paul Graham's article? I didn't notice/ |
| Sat 31 Jul | Eric Sink | The piece is very well written. I could write a whole essay in response to it. Instead, I think I'll just write a few offhand remarks and then go watch a Law and Order rerun: It seems clear that a goal of this piece is to pick a fight. It accomplishes that goal. His characterization of great hackers is a perfect fit for some of the great hackers I know. He seems to make the assumption that great hackers make the best hires. That assumption clearly has some truth in it, but it still wants to be challenged and debated. He broadly says great hackers don't use Windows or Java. Like I said, that description fits a few people I know. Still, I'm not sure I think the characterization is perfect. Quite frankly, on a personal level, Graham's piece made me wonder if I am a great hacker or not. I've always been faster than most of my peers. I love python, Linux, emacs and have a general preference for open source. But apparently I cared more about money than those things. Today I use all kinds of technologies which Graham says great hackers don't use. Furthermore, I've learned the secret that the most profitable products are the ones the great hackers think are beneath their skills. This raises three possibilities: 1. I never was a great hacker. This could be true, but I've worked a few miracles of code in my day, so I can't shake the belief that I might have once been a great hacker. 2. I used to be a great hacker, but I changed. If this is true, I lost something. But it seems I also gained something. 3. Graham is wrong. Like I said, his piece is very well written. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Crimson | I agree. He's certainly hinted at his disdain for all things Java (and Windows) in the past, but in this article, the gauntlet is firmly thrown down. As you said, it's his usual well written essay. However, there are a few premises that he asks us to swallow that I'm choking on. In general there include: - The supposed incompetence of all things Windows and Java - Virtually ignoring C/C++ and Perl during his brief synopsis of major language use - Statements like 'Of all the great programmers I can think of, I know of only one who would voluntarily program in Java' begs the question of whether or not he automatically excludes people as being 'great programmers' if they prefer Java - His following statements concerning his friend and Windows development begs exactly the same question, only with Windows in place of Java - His baffling belief that Apple exists because of the quality of their product rather than the fact that MS allows them to exist so that federal anti-trust lawyers don't come pounding on their door However, he makes a lot of excellent points, and many of his observations are *often* true, if not absolutely so. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Management Material | For me, this piece revealed Graham's weaknesses and lack of insight. In reading a few of his earlier pieces I had suspected they were probably sparked by discussion on JOS, but without any acknowledgement. The latest one certainly has that feel. Unlike his earlier pieces, it displays no additional insight. I'm sorry. I think this latest piece from Graham is cheap. He is essentially using it to promote his own approach to the world rather than it being a genuinely objective or insightful commentary. |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=168339&ixReplies=45 |
| Sun 01 Aug | Jordan Lev | Hi. I actually saw Paul Graham give this speech at the OSCON this week, and it was great (he's as good a speaker as a writer). I think you should keep in mind who his intended audience was for this -- people who were attending the Open Source Conference. So while it may seem like he's trying to 'pick a fight', he was probably espousing the least-controversial opinion he could, given the crowd. But of course this attitude, which is largely unquestioned in that community, is almost intentionally meant to 'pick a fight' within the larger world of developers. Refer to the second-last paragraph of his piece:
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| Sun 01 Aug | Simon Lucy | I haven't bothered to read the piece, why should actual information be used to colour my own predjudices? The word hacker is one of those terms of adolescence that I abominate it almost as much as 'techie'. I think much of Paul Graham's opinions are formulated, like many, upon his original experience. Those that Lisped in the beginning can rarely twist their tongue into new shapes. Its not surprising that he doesn't value Win32, Java and the rest since he's done most everything his own way and, if what I've heard is marginally true, in ways which are difficult to maintain and frequently replaced. I have nothing against Lisp, or any other means of shuffling stuff through transistors, I've not found a language or grammar so far that I haven't been able to understand, though I prefer one that doesn't use recursion and a gazillion brackets to emit a string. |
| Sun 01 Aug | John Rusk | Perhaps Paul Graham looked at Windows in the early 90's and concluded, probably correctly, that it was inferior to its competition. Having made that conclusion, it sounds to me like he never really looked at it again, and so hasn't really seen how much ground Windows has made up. I guess another reason for is anti-Windows stance is his belief that most software should be server-based. While I don't agree with his anti-Windows view, I think the article is thought provoking and well written. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Rick Thunderbolt | Graham is correct. All the best programmers work using Python and Perl on Linux. Programmers who use Java or work on Windows are not very intelligent. These facts are unassilable, sisnce they come from the man who wrote the world's FIRST web application EVER. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Code Seeker | Does any one have a pointer to substantial open source code written by Paul Graham? He says that all great hackers work in open source and that he himself is a great hacker. Therefore it would follow that there must be considerable examples out there of his writing style in the form of working examples of finely coded, maintainable and robust applications. |
| Sun 01 Aug | ronk! | I don't remember him calling himself a great hacker. Where does say that? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Eric Sink | Agreed -- I don't remember Graham claiming that he himself is a great hacker. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Kalani | No he doesn't say that he's a great hacker in that article. But if you listen to Doug Kaye's recent interview with him (http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail164.html) you'll find this quote: 'I wrote this spam filter in order to make sure this language was actually good for writing programs and the spam filter turned out to be really good. I wrote something about it and a lot of other people wrote spam filters like it. But also simultaneously I’m working on a new axiomatic core of the language. I’m trying to do what McCarthy did in building up a language from axioms the same way Euclid did with geometry ... [but] it could be years [before Arc is completed] because Lisp itself was invented in 1958, so I feel like people have waited over 40 years for a really good Lisp implementation and I don’t mind if they have to wait for another two in order to make sure that it is actually really good.' I think it's fairly clear that he considers himself a 'good hacker' (to the extent that his greatest work has been needed for 40 years). He describes his new language as being designed for good programmers (and simultaneously says that he's designed his language to make it easy for him to implement his spam filtering program). In fact, I think that he probably is a 'good hacker,' but he's also clearly got a myopic attitude about quality in the world at large. Some of this is just pandering to a particular audience (he's previously described Python as the result of Guido van Rossum 'bending over backwards' not to reimplement Lisp so that he can claim to have created a new language), but I wonder how much he's mixing up tools (even intellectual tools) with the exploration of new domains. It's like the question of whether Newton or Leibniz made a more important contribution (Newton's tools might have been less elegant, but his discovery of classical physics was significant). |
| BSxx on campus recruitment | Sat 31 Jul | hoser |
| If there are any students on the JoS forum, Im curious as to how things are going for kids graduating with Bachelors of Science degrees in CS, EE, Math or other fertile software fields are going? Is it hard to get interviews? Are there lots of companies interviewing on campuse these days? Does that degree guarantee your employment? There was a time when it almost did guarantee a good career (back in my youth), but how are things now? Thanks, |
| Sat 31 Jul | Bored Bystander | When I graduated from engineering school in 1980 the more aggressive kids in my class had 5-7 offers in hand. I was pretty laid back (typical engineering nerd type) and I had four offers in hand at graduation with almost no effort. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | [Philo checks watch, shakes it] Is it 1980 again already? Damn... Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | Tj | I've got a BSCS from a state college. There were 0 companies interviewing on campus last semester of school. There were 2 internship positions posted and they were fought over by students from other schools also I'm sure. I don't know who got the positions. The school has already employed students from previous years some are doing research on grants while others are teaching but they can only employ so many. The guys (At the school) who maintain the network etc... won't give up their jobs heh, who can blame em. At the job fairs that I attended there were usually two or three companies interested in taking my resume but they didn't seem to go much further than that. Does it guarantee a job or a career? I don't think a degree ever really guaranteed you anything. The demand for the service you can provide at the time you get your degree is what counts and right now the demand for entry level CS degree does not seem to be that high. I currently work at a hardware store and hopefully I can run across a position in my home state or a position with the school. I think it matters what part of the country you are in and what school you went to. (e.g. Had I attended MIT and been on the east coast instead of the midwest the opportunities may have been greater, but thats just speculation. /shrug). I guess I could also try for the help desk/support jobs or start my own company. Most of the jobs advertised seem to want 3 - 5 years of experience and then there are the reportedly 'fake' positions advertised by a lot of recruiters and companies collecting resumes which the schools employment office helps us sort through. So is it good? No. Is it hopeless? I hope not. |
| Sat 31 Jul | hoser | BSCS from a state school and no on-site interviews? Well, that sucks. Damn. If I had any guts at all, I could rule the world with 10 new grads and a decent product idea. I am gutless. BoredB, we are the same generation. There were no guarantees then, (I did not mean to say that there were), but there apparently are a hell of a lot fewer possibilities now. |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | The school has a lot to do with it. The top grads at the top schools still get offers from a lot of places & have recruting fairs filled with great places. Even the medium grads at the top schools get lots of offers. The top grads at lesser known schools.... Well, you can't get what isn't there for you to take. |
| Sat 31 Jul | hoser | 'The top grads at the top schools still get offers from a lot of places & have recruting fairs filled with great places. ' Well, yeah, I mean an MIT or CMU CS degree may actually mean an autmatic job. But what about CS degrees from: Illinois Michigan Purdue U. of Washington (U-Dub) Arizona Penn State These are good (top?) state schools with good reputations and are affordable (speaking in relative terms). I mean I can see how a degree from Idaho might net you a goose egg - because no recruiter can even book air fare into your town. I recall a friend of mine struggling with the MSEE material at Purdue, and someone dissing the state school said something like 'yeah, well maybe your undergrad degree was lame, where'd you go?' His answer: MIT. I went to a private school (Rose-Hulman) and tuition back then had risen to $7K/year by the time I graduated. Today, its $40K/yr. Its questionable as to whether I can send my kids there. Just pondering the landscape... |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | My friend recently graduated from Cooper Union & most of the graduating class got jobs or offers or at least a serious look from places like Lucent and some other places she mentioned that I don't remember. I know Citi, when I worked there, recruited from Columbia mostly, and maybe NYU. In fact, the Columbia medical school is named after the CEO. Unfortunately, these are things you really don't know until you get out of school. When you're checking out a school, it would make sense to go to their job fairs and see who's represented, and talk to some of the students about their prosepects. |
| Sat 31 Jul | . | Let's not forget that companies, universities and all the media 'experts' were screaming about how there was a desperate shortage of programmers just four years ago, and how it was an unbeatable career option. Someone should sue those bastards. |
| Sun 01 Aug | kc | HOSER! I went to Rose too. EE back a few years, but now I do software development. And my EE degree was more rigorous than the EE's which I knew at UIUC and Purdue... When I graduated, most people managed to get 2-5 offers. I believe I had 4 with *not* super grades. From what I've heard from back in the pipeline (Jan Ford), things are warming up there again, they expect the next Career Fair to be much better. |
| Sun 01 Aug | kc | Oh, and when I started, tuition was $20k, but I managed to have enough credits and earn more fast enough to move up a class and get a significant discount. |
| Sun 01 Aug | no name | Rose-Hulman is regarded m/l as the MIT of the corn belt, is it not? Just not well known outside the midwest... |
| Sun 01 Aug | kc | It's on the leading edge of a lot of things and ranked pretty well in US News & World Report, but unless you're in the Midwest or working with some serious engineers, you're unlikely to have any clue what it is. It's the exception when you actually meet someone who has heard of it... |
| Sun 01 Aug | www.marktaw.com | Universities need to spend as much PR on raising the awareness of their school to companies that may be interested in hiring the best & brightest as they do convincing high school students theirs is the best school for them. |
| The Village (no spoilers) | Sat 31 Jul | Philo |
| See, Im not even going to read the The Village topic, cause I dont want to know a jot of Shyalamans movies until I see them - if its good, there is no way I want an inkling of whats going to happen, and its too easy for a single accidental remark to ruin it. I love the wonder of being hit upside the head with a well-crafted twist. :-) Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | dir at badblue com | Then you must have loved _The Usual Suspects_. One of my favorite endings of all time. |
| Sat 31 Jul | eclectic_echidna | If I put a spoiler {here}, then the subject is misleading. If only this topic was marked 'sealed'. -- ee |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Not only that, but by following this thread, Philo is really opening himeslf up to reading something he doesn't want to. |
| Sat 31 Jul | jokey smurf | 'The Village' has a neat twist when we find out that Bruce Willis has been dead for the last 90 minutes of the film! Oh, and we find out that OJ is guilty of murder, and that Saddam was hiding WMD's...in my PANTS. Which movie are we talking about, again? |
| Sat 31 Jul | PopCulture | business class 6th sence: Cole Sear: I work with dumb people. Malcolm Crowe: In your dreams? [Cole shakes his head no] Malcolm Crowe: While you're awake? [Cole nods] ... Cole Sear: Walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dumb. Malcolm Crowe: How often do you see them? Cole Sear: All the time. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Justin Johnson | I just saw it, and really liked it, because I'd been forewarned by all the bad reviews that it wasn't a scary movie in the sense that most people mean 'scary movie'--lots of edge-of-your-seat, clawing-your-date's-arm moments. Really, Shyamalan's movies require sinking into the psychological atmosphere of the movie the way you'd ease into a hot tub. If you can dot that, then you'll probably like it a lot. If you can't, you'll probably hate it. There are traditional scary moments, but his movies are much more about the ebb and flow of fear and tension in the atmosphere he creates. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Wayne Earl | The problem is, each of his movies is essentially a rewrite of the last one. He only works with one script. A very over-rated director. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Stephen Jones | Who the hell is this guy? Pop Cultiure is post of the month! |
| Sun 01 Aug | robert | 'I love the wonder of being hit upside the head with a well-crafted twist. :-)' I don't think you'll find it here. The 'twist' is so transparent I was really hoping it was only a setup twist, leading the 'real' twist. On the 'real' twist never came. Then it ended. Honestly, I think anyone who has seen a Shyamalan film and the trailer can figure out the twist before setting foot in the theater. I did. |
| Sun 01 Aug | www.marktaw.com | Robert, do you assume that the people here aren't reading BOTH threads? |
| Sun 01 Aug | AllanL5 | It is MUCH better than its previews might lead you to believe. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Clutch Cargo | Man, that crop circle movie the guy made was terrible. His first one was OK though. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Clutch Cargo | Oh, and if you really love a well-crafted twist, you should skip the movies and read books. Movies are aimed at the low, low, lowest denominator. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Wayne | Robert, you're a pretentious biotch aren't you? |
| IS PRIVATIZATION answer to...... | Sat 31 Jul | A young learner |
| Is PRIVATIZATION answer to most of the problems.... I am living in India. Many people here advocate privatization as solution of many of our, if not all, problems. Are these people right when they say so? Are there any long-term harm and drawbacks of Privatization? In which scenario, sectors does privatization delivers best? Any thoughts... |
| Sat 31 Jul | anon | This is a hot topic in Pakistan too. Just to make it a bit more clear to others on the board - many organizations, etc. here are under the governments control. For most of the markets, there is only one state- owned organization, company or corporation. So, the original poster probably wanted your opinion on what if these state-owned monopolistic organizations were privatized (i.e. sold to private sector). I personally feel it wouldn't help much. The government can and does make money by selling out these organizations. But before they sell them, they make an authoritative entity above it - this new authoritative entity assumes all the power which was once attributed to the *now* privatized organization. This still doesn't promise competition. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Flasher T | Like many great concepts, success depends on implementation. At the very core, socialism and government-controlled economy only work well in a very particular set of circumstances. Norway is the socialist poster child, but they have oil, an aluminium processing industry and not a lot of mouths to feed - so they have money to spend. Countries which do not have objective natural resources which can sustain a social experiment for a long enough time will not succeed. At the end of the day, a country needs to find an edge that its economy has over its competitors. In India, it's apparently quality labor on offer to American corporations. This edge cannot be successfully utilized in a government-controlled economy, it's just not going to happen. So while privatization is likely to lead to a lot of bad things in the near term (look at Russia in the early-mid 90s), it is the only way for the country to develop. IMHO. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Been there | Young learner, in India's case the answer is probably no. Privatization is often a code word for making greedy bastards richer. They do this by sacking lots of people, creaming the profits, compromising safety standards, letting workers get killed, etc. They claim to have made the enterprise 'more efficient,' but what they really do is shift the costs to other parts of society, including the workers without jobs, the villagers who have no water, the customers with cancer. India has a lot of learning to do and is on the way. But tell the privatization pricks to go back to America. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Been there | By "go back to America", I am referring to the fact that most privatization fans are NRI's. (Overseas Indians - the rich ones.) |
| Sat 31 Jul | A young learner | Thanks!, Anon :-) |
| Sat 31 Jul | A young learner | Flasher; 'So while privatization is likely to lead to a lot of bad things in the near term (look at Russia in the early-mid 90s)' 'Lot of bad things' like? And will India be able to afford it !? |
| Sat 31 Jul | kc | One of the *nice* things about Privatization is that you actually have a group/organization responsible for things. When the government is in charge of somethnig, everyone is in CYA-mode. I've worked at numerous government agencies in the US and *few* employees ever risk their own asses to do the right thing. They don't want to risk their jobs/career and what are you going to do, sue the government? |
| Sat 31 Jul | Flasher T | More or less what Been There said. Privatization introduced to a country with a long-standing tradition of planned economy leads to the few smart, lucky and ruthless people getting most of the wealth and disregarding consequences. When wealth becomes available to people who previously did not have the chance to acquire it, these people tend to kill the cow for the hide instead of starting up a dairy. In the early days of Russian independence, the industry and the natural resources were taken over by a handful of people who sold off anything they could find a buyer for and leave the rest to rot. As a result, the average person's main concern was finding their next meal. It also lead to the national default of '98. Still, over a decade later things look like they're becoming more civilized, although I am extremely suspicious of what Putin's actions are leading up to. The main reason why markets work and planned economy doesn't is because the former is self-regulating and, more importantly, natural. If the Indian government truly embraces free markets and eliminates all but the absolutely necessary government control, there will certainly be a period of turmoil, but it will level off eventually. In fact I'd go as far as to say the transition will be easier than it was for Russia. One, Russians are extremely aggressive people by nature (although I do not know enough about Indian society to really compare), two, India has a history of fairly good times under fairly civilized rule in the Empire, and three, Western free-market-based companies have an enormous stake in India's economy at this point. As for whether India can afford it or not, I don't think that's even relevant - it has to do it, otherwise it will never develop into a First World country. Globalization means every single economy needs an edge, and since India's is tied into the free market economy of the US and Europe, it needs to have the same base to protrude the edge from - planned economy is too inefficient for free markets to bother with, however glorious the talent pool may be. |
| Sat 31 Jul | z | Young learner, I hope you take that name seriously and take some time to learn about economics. A free market economy would improve any country's situation, but privatization by itself won't do much to get you there. Too many people believe you can just get rid of some specific problem with a country, say send in an army to overthrow a dictator, and the future will be wonderful. It doesn't happen that easily. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | Low standards of living Poor education Safety problems High crime rates etc, etc, etc All these things can be solved via social engineering. The problem is that it takes a strong visionary at the top steering the way, and it takes TIME. I'm talking about generations. You need an entire generation of children raised to make each transitional phase to enable the next phase. One of our big problems in the US is this pervasive belief that anything can be fixed within four years if the federal government just throws money at it; but nobody is willing to do the real work where it's necessary. It takes time, effort, and commitment to make change. This is a very hard problem. Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | -----'India has a history of fairly good times under fairly civilized rule in the Empire, '------- Ah, yes, the good old British Empire where the sun never set and the blood never dried. The problem with Russian privatization was that the process was introduced by a load of theorists funded by the USA and they just blindly rushed into it. They also botched the process, and the result was that the workers found themselves cheated out of their shares; one trick was for the company bosses to withold salaries so that the workers were forced to sell their shares for a cash advance. Going back to your question it all depends on the individual country and the individual industry. To give you one example fo privatization working Sri Lankan Airlines flights have the prefix UL. This was generally considered to stand for 'Usually Late'. I read this at Kuwait airport and five minutes later an announcement came over the tannoy that the plane had been delayed. We eventually left 24 hours later, since they couldn't be bothered to send over a reserve crew, and the incoming crew had exceeded their flight hours. You have to reconfirm a flight; I did this by fax, and they evidentally just threw the fax in the trash. When I got to the airport they simply claimed I couldn't have sent the fax because I wasn't on the flight list. A few years back, around 1999, I think, they sold around 50% of the shares to Emirates and gave them the right to manage the airline. Since that time I have caught Sri Lankan Airlines ten times and the flight has never been more than a few minutes late. The service is also excellent (it was voted the best airline in Asia for onflight service some time ago) and you can reconfirm directly at the airport or by means of a simple phone call. On the other hand lets take the question of the Sri Lankan bus companies. They had a central bus company in Colombo in the 50's and 60's called the CBT. Buses were clean, normally used London double-deckers, and people old enough to remember tell you they were a pleasure to travel on. Now, as being an Indian you will well be aware, there is such a thing as 'goonda' politics, and the CBT became the dumping ground where politicians would give jobs to their bodyguards cum henchmen. The result was that it became bloated and unmangeable. In 1977 the UNP government came in and decided to set up private bus companies in competition. This was part of a policy that got the name of 'crony capitalism' and the result was that private bus routes were given to the friends of those in power, and the drivers chosen from among the henchmen/bodyguards of those 'businessmen' or their political sponsors. The result is that travelling in a private bus in Colombo unless it's late at night or first thing in the morning is the kind of thing you would not wish to repeat, whether by private or state-owned transport. To go back to the Indian situation I would say that privatisation is no panacea. But there are certain inefficient, bloated sectors, where it really would do some good. If you have ever had the misfortune to travel on the domestic carrier, Indian Airlines, which manages to have the worst inflight food in the world, you will know what I mean. And of course it is well-known that when you go to a State Bank in India you will wait the first forty-five minutes after opening while staff arrrive, or not as the case may be, and then proceed to chat and read the newspaper. Of course, privatising these behemoths will mean that the newspaper reading staff and kickback taking procurement officers will lose their jobs and so will a lot of less innocent people, but in the long run it does not help an economy to have a bloated workforce that does nothing. In general I would say that there are one or two general rules. 1. Monopolies should not be privatised; there is unlikely to be an efficiency gain 2. Sometimes it does not matter too much. Peugot-Citroen is a gevernment company; Volkswagen is a private company owned mainly by the Unions and the State governments; General Motors is entirely private. It really makes little difference. 3. Privatization is not a panacea. It will not cure corruption, extortion, greed, or rampant commercial dishonesty, which are some of the major ills of South Asia, and until they are cured spectacular, just and sustainable development will not be possible. 4. Most importantly, economies do not like abrupt changes. 'Shock therapy' normally only causes trauma. The collapse of the Iron Curtain caused severe problems for Eastern Europe because the old economic system was destroyed at a stroke, but nothing was in place to substitute it. So the policy in India of 'softly, softly, catchee monkey' is to be applauded. 5. If you see somebody complaining about selling the country's soul off to foreigners automatically support the thing he's attacking. Firstly in most First World countries few know or really care what is the nationality of the owners of their core industries, or even much of thier real estate, and secondly, the Indian poor would probably be no worse off exploited by foreiogners than they are by their fellow countrymen as happens at present. Just a few thoughts anyway |
| Sat 31 Jul | daddywarbux | Once you strip away political rhetoric you see all nations run mixed economies, providing government sequestered funds for their voting constituents on one hand while attempting to trade advantageously with the outside world on the other. That's if they are functioning nations. Not all national populations are allowed to vote effectively and outside worlds may not run along national boundaries. Planned economies don't work unless they win. Look at Russia, China, Europe, India, USA, Australia, Israel, Brasil, Iran -- and Hungary. Which of these is going to be left standing in 20, 50, 100 years? All run planned economies to some degree for different reasons. The arguments start about what constitutes planning. here's the list; Russia: busted, population KO'd lots loot, some v. rich individuals China : booming, not much room for Gwailo. Europe: cheese-eating surrender monkeys. Nice cheese. Good national servicies. India: biggest disparity between rich and poor outside the USA - quote from Boolywood starlet 'it's nice seeing 700 years of human development at once' Sheesh. USA LLL. Lockheed. Smith+Kline. Enron. The VP ... Australia Australian Wheat Board. National Health. CSIRO. Israel your pick Brasil slavery. Mardi Gras. Iran who cares? ... they've got buckets of oil. Hungary? Coincidentally has the median world income and least internal income disparity. No idea how. If you see a personal benefit from proposed change then go for it otherwise question proffered flannel before providing support. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | 'India: biggest disparity between rich and poor outside the USA' ? Is there some qualifier here you use to discount nations where the leadership has gold-plated toilets but 3/4 of the population are starving to death? Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | No country has 3/4 of its population starving to death. There probably are a few hundred deaths a year in India related to starvation out of a population of a billion. There are also a much larger number of deaths related to weakened immune systems as a result of malnutrition. The only times India is known to have suffered widespread famine was under the British in 1879 and 1943 when there were tens of millions of deaths as a result of deliberate government policy. |
| Sat 31 Jul | hoser | It almost does not matter, as Stephen Jones points out, who owns the industry, so long as competition is allowed to thrive. Its fine to have large stake holders be government entities, just so long as no favors are given to the government industry. The problem, is that in practice, its hard for a government not to legeslate in favor of its state industry. Perhaps impossible. Until you see governments abandon farm subsidies, which is arguable the most decentralized, commoditized, competetive industry in the world, then you know they are not serious about free markets. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Fred | >>Peugot-Citroen is a gevernment company; Nope, it's Renault. Peugeot has always been a private (er... its traded at the stock exchange, so it's technically public :-)) company, and the original family still owns a good chunck of it. As for Renault, I think the government still owns 50% or something, and intends to sell those shares when the market picks up. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Flasher T | 'The collapse of the Iron Curtain caused severe problems for Eastern Europe because the old economic system was destroyed at a stroke, but nothing was in place to substitute it.' Funnily enough, most of Eastern Europe is now at a level where Western Europe feels cautiously optimistic about letting them play in their sandbox. Also, as part ethnically Russian (I live in New Europe), I resent the implication that Russians need America to f* up their country. I assure you, they are totally capable of doing it themselves. I also fully expect America, Russia, Europe, China and India to be around a hundred years from tomorrow, somewhat changed but fundamentally similar. |
| Sat 31 Jul | A young learner | Problem is, here the politicians and bureaucrats first kills and distroys the public sector company/organisation. And then they are the first to advocate privatisation. |
| Sat 31 Jul | A young learner | Thanks Stephens, 'This was part of a policy that got the name of 'crony capitalism' and the result was that private bus routes were given to the friends of those in power, and the drivers chosen from among the henchmen/bodyguards of those 'businessmen' or their political sponsors. The result is that travelling in a private bus in Colombo unless it's late at night or first thing in the morning is the kind of thing you would not wish to repeat, whether by private or state-owned transport.' Same is the case here in Delhi. We are having private blue-line, white-line buses and DTC buses ( Delhi-Transport-Corp.) running on roads. Believe me, they have created a mess. We had to wait till the DTC bus arrives because travelling in any other private bus was very un-safe. You are absolutely right when you say, for airlines, privatisation may work out good but not as much, for Buses. Often these things are not taken into consideration. Here the lower, lower-middle and some what middle class population have a fear of lossing jobs. They feel that this is a planned move to further crush them. Apart from this the reservation factor plays an important role as it is only restricted to the public sector. |
| Sat 31 Jul | A young learner | Philo: 'The problem is that it takes a strong visionary at the top steering the way, and it takes TIME. ' And this is almost impossible, atleast in a democracy like our's! And even if a visionary get's at the top, he/she would be having just 5 years at his/her disposal. Sometimes even less. Isn't it! |
| Sat 31 Jul | A young learner | At the same time, we are having law enforcement agencies, just not working properly as would have been expected. You have agreements with governments which are just not been taken care of by the private sector. Ex. Few years back, government gave acres of land at very cheap prices near Delhi for constructing a hospital to a private sector company. They promised to provide good health care facility. Indeed! They are providing it. But they also had an agreement that the hospital will have saperate 100 beds for patients from poor background and that they would be treated for free. But this is not just the case. Instead no one from a middle class family can go there for check-up as it is too costly. So we are just having AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) for poor section of our society because it is a government institute which provides reasonably good health care facility at a very cheap rates. What I fear is, if implementation of rules and regulations, agreements are not being met then will it not be a total Disaster! It is not as simple. Isn't it! So for health-care sector, privatisation may not be a good option here in India. Isn't it. |
| Sat 31 Jul | A young learner | Taking the present country scenario into consideration, Can we say privatisation is a good option for, say service industry...like Airlines, Hospitality, Tourism, or for that matter Banks which basically caters to upper class population. Whereas, for say Health-care which caters to wider cross section ( from poorest of the poor to richest) of the society, the privatisation may/may-not be a good option. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Aussie bloke | In Australia all our banks are privately owned, and they've closed hundreds of branches in country towns, sometimes leaving towns without any bank at all. They've also slashed staff so that customers who go into a branch usually have to wait some time to be served. Queues of up to half an hour occur in some city branches. The banks don't care about those queues because they know the customers don't have much choice. One of those banks used to be government owned, but it was privatized to 'improve service.' That means it also sacked 1000's of people and closed hundreds of branches. When it was in government hands, that bank could provide competition to the private banks, and keep them honest. When our half-private telco Telstra sent hundreds of jobs offfshore, it claimed it has a right to do this because it's a private business. Well, it was a business created with taxpayer money, and it still enjoys a lot of government monopolies. |
| Sat 31 Jul | . | The key to privatisation is to avoid simply transferring ownership of a monopoly. Opening the market to competition is critical and has to happen in tandem with the privatisation effort. It's also important to do these things in phases, to prevent the dislocation that can occur with any major economic change. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Michael Moser | ---'The problem with Russian privatization was that the process was introduced by a load of theorists funded by the USA and they just blindly rushed into it. They also botched the process, and the result was that the workers found themselves cheated out of their shares; one trick was for the company bosses to withold salaries so that the workers were forced to sell their shares for a cash advance.'--- You forgot to mention that industry before privatization was very centralized; there were some very large scale enterprises. So _after_ privatization the same stuff had to end up as a centralized entity; only this time they had to find new owners. also, i think that Russia isn't really doing _that_ bad; when the Soviet Union collapsed it was a bancrupt country, now it isn't. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Stephen Jones | -----' also, i think that Russia isn't really doing _that_ bad; when the Soviet Union collapsed it was a bancrupt country, now it isn't. '---- The average life expectancy in Russia declined by some eight or nine years, and this is before AIDS really starts to hit in. The government is bankrupt. This is why it has forced the bankruptcy of Yukos, so that it can be sold back to Gazprom for the government to get the oil revenues. |
| Sun 01 Aug | A young learner | Flasher, 'As for whether India can afford it or not, I don't think that's even relevant - it has to do it, otherwise it will never develop into a First World country. ' Every 'Third World Country' would like itself to be called as ' First World Country'. No doubt about it! And it will take lot of time before a significant change is visible on the surface. But what I meant by 'Can India afford it ' is if this process costs millions of lives and if it makes the life of weaker section of the society even more miserable and unbearable, then ofcourse I would prefer being called a citizen of 'Third World Country'. And not to go for privatization and improve the present system slowly and gradually. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Been there | Young learner, thank God that Congress got back in. |
| Sun 01 Aug | z | >>>And not to go for privatization and improve the present system slowly and gradually. <<< Young learner, I reread Flasher T's post and I think he is referring to establishing a free market or a freer one then they have now, not privatization. You need to be a learner and try to figure out the difference. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Flasher T | 'also, i think that Russia isn't really doing _that_ bad; when the Soviet Union collapsed it was a bancrupt country, now it isn't.' Russia officially declared itself bankrupt in August 1998, defaulting on all foreign debt. The national currency lost 9/10ths of its worth, a lot of foreign investment vanished. The only reason why the country made it through was because most Russians already had a custom of keeping their money in foreign currency. Some people say that at the height of it all, there was more cash dollars in Russia than in the US. Even today most prices for expensive goods in Russia are marked in 'arbitrary units' - the day's rouble equivalent of the sum in USD or Euros. 'The government is bankrupt. This is why it has forced the bankruptcy of Yukos, so that it can be sold back to Gazprom for the government to get the oil revenues.' The government forced the bankrupcy of Yukos for the same reason that the government issued an international Wanted order for Boris Berezovsky: Putin will not allow anyone to get enough power to challenge him. That is why Roman Abramovich, who is the governor of one federal district in Russia, is taking his money abroad. He knows that he can only continue doing business as long as he makes it plainly clear that he has no intentions of going into politics on a serious level. (The district he runs is basically a poor version of Alaska, he apparently spends a lot of his own money on social programs there.) |
| Sun 01 Aug | Monsanto Alert | 'farm subsidies, which is arguable the most decentralized' Does this explain how in the US most subsidies go to the corn and sugar industries. The sugar industry is represented by two multinational corporations, the corn industry is represented by two multinational corporations. These corporations, all Fortune 500, are the largest recipients of US government welfare in the world. So I would say that the farm industry that recieves subsidies is not decentralized, nor is it commodity -- markups on sugar are ten thousand times higher than production costs. |
| Sun 01 Aug | A young learner | Z; >>>Young learner, I hope you take that name seriously<<< >>>You need to be a learner and try to figure out the difference.<<< I am Z!. I am!. If I don't take your advice, then who else! You seem to be a great learner and well-wisher of all since childhood..... Carry-On your service for whole humanity! May God Bless You! Amen! ( I hope this is spoken and written after every prayer). Flasher; Sorry, Flasher...I probably misunderstood your post and took it in different context. But in India also many people give the same argument in favour of 'Privatisation'. Sorry! |
| Sun 01 Aug | Michael Moser | ---''also, i think that Russia isn't really doing _that_ bad; when the Soviet Union collapsed it was a bancrupt country, now it isn't.' Russia officially declared itself bankrupt in August 1998, defaulting on all foreign debt. The national currency lost 9/10ths of its worth, a lot of foreign investment vanished. '--- The point is that there has been a recovery since (oil prices have gone up, you see). Also the default/bancrupcy of 1998 fueled demand for domestic goods - which put some people to work. Anyway, my point was that Russia wasn't doing that bad; given that in Soviet Union about _half_ of all industry was producing useless military output; heavy stuff that cannot be put to civilian use. Closing down half of industry puts any economy into chaos; it was direct result of the decision to get Russia out of the cold war. Given this legacy, i find it is a great achievment that they are still afloat. |
| The Village (don't see it!) | Sat 31 Jul | Wayne |
| What a lame movie. I bet everyone in the theater was expecting a scary movie, since thats what was advertised. The ending was lame, but I couldnt wait for the ending since the rest of the movie was boring and uneventful. |
| Sat 31 Jul | GiorgioG | I don't know - it wasn't an action packed thriller, but I thought the ending was at least, different. We're too used to films that keep moving from 1 action scene to the next. I've seen alot of worse movies..and I didn't particularly mind bucking up $8 to see this one. Then again, I'm also reading Atlas Shrugged, so maybe I'm a glutton for slow-moving punishment ;-) |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | I don't know if it's any good, but that huge Loews theather in Times Square is closing down, and you can see it for half price (buy one ticket, get one) & get free concessions to boot. http://www.backstage.com/backstage/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000589958 'The 1,440-seat Astor Plaza at 44th and Broadway, which opened in 1974 with Barbra Streisand's 'For Pete's Sake,' will shutter and be converted into a live rock concert hall.' |
| Sat 31 Jul | Wayne | Well, they sure advertised it as a scary movie and I can count only two times in the movie where I was somewhat scared. I feel ripped off, I wonder what the budget for this movie was? |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Isn't it about the same with all of his movies? I don't know why they call this guy a "master" of horror. Signs sucked, whatever that movie where the guy was indestructible was boring as hell. Only the "I see dead people" movie was any good. |
| Sat 31 Jul | karthik | Signs was a hit i think. There are a lot of stupid movies made which go on to become hits |
| Sun 01 Aug | Justin Johnson | I just saw it, and loved it, because I was forewarned by all the bad reviews not to expect a really scary movie. Once that misconception was out of the way, it was a good drama, though you kind of have to consciously buy into it at the beginning. |
| Sun 01 Aug | phil jones | Signs was the only one I saw, and I couldn't believe how bad the deus ex machina was. Aaargh! Can't Hollywood afford science consultants? |
| Sun 01 Aug | robert | The problem with The Village is that the 'twist' is so transparent, it's almost laughable. If you don't figure it out in the first ten minutes, your bulb is a little dim. However, the movie still has a little merit as a germane sociological commentary. I think 3/4 of the theater thought it was supposed to be a scary movie, and I heard lots of grumbling and 'dude, this sucks' as it became clear that it was not a 'scary movie,' but something that tried to have a little more depth. I'm still not sure if the twist was meant to be so obvious, or whether the director thought he would have us going. |
| What does google do? | Fri 30 Jul | Berlin Brown |
| Seriously, everyone is talking google and the search engine, the IPO, the MS competitor, the company that hires the smartest people in the world. I visit, www.google.com, and I see an input box. So the question, how does google make their money, maybe I should google on it, I am going have to assume ad revenue AdSense? and also they have such a web presence. From a technical standpoint, why should people use google over the other search engines, higher relevant searches?.... Speed? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Wait, were you hiding under a rock the last 10 years or are you asking us to do your homework? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | I mean you know where JOS is, but you don't know where Google is or what it is for? Is this an obvious troll? Maybe I am the only one. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Berlin Brown | I answered my own question, but how does a website become worth 36 billion dollars, what will they have to do from a technical standpoint to generate more revenue in the future. What does google do.... that makes them so competitive? Is it their smart people, hitting the market first? Are they so far advanced from a technical standpoint that others cant catch up? Are they the most secure, search-engine that they have a 24-7 operation? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Berlin Brown | Another point, I think others 'Apple' mentioned that they are taking google concept and bringing it to your machine. Steve Jobs, and I quote, 'it is easier to get on google and find something on the internet than it is to find a file on your own machine.' With the Apple's 'Tiger' release, you will see Spotlight. |
| Fri 30 Jul | JWA | 'hitting the market first?' Umm, the search engine market seemed pretty well served well before Google got started. Their success all comes down to execution. What they do, they do well and they do it the way they see best, not by copying the status quo. As to financial worth, revenues, and profit - you'll have to look to someone else for that evaluation. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Philo | Somehow, the question 'How can I find out what Google does?' has a certain recursive zen quality about it... Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | no name | They consolidate the eyeball monetizing infrastructure for new virtual economy paradigm b2c providers. |
| Sat 31 Jul | http://www.dack.com/web/bullshit.html | 'They consolidate the eyeball monetizing infrastructure for new virtual economy paradigm b2c providers. ' Yea, but while also unleashing visionary architectures as they aggregate vertical e-tailers to facilitate global convergence. Facilitating proactive niches? More like monetize next-generation deliverables! |
| Sat 31 Jul | T. Norman | In addition to the ad revenue, they also sell search engine technology to corporations that need searching within their intranet. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Alex | >> They consolidate the eyeball monetizing infrastructure for new virtual economy paradigm b2c providers. You know, I think that makes sense. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Simon Lucy | There is not enough tequila in your diet. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Berlin Brown | This is what I was looking for http://www.webweavertech.com/ovidiu/weblog/archives/000160.html It's for the first time I see such a large engineering group developing exclusively on Linux. Development happens in C, Python and Java using (X)Emacs and/or vi. Everybody seems to be a Linux hacker, with their own desktop and emacs customizations. I was originally planning to do development on my MacOS X laptop, but I've quickly decided to go back to my roots and use XEmacs on Linux. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Tom H | When Google came on the scene there were several search engines, but it seemed like they were all on the take. You'd search for something and all you would get is pop-ups and lame sites trying to sell stuff. The dot bombers never seemed to understand that luring people to their site and counting page hits wouldn't make money. Searching on Google brought you to sites with relevant content, and Google kept the sponsored links clearly separated from the search hits. So when you are looking to shop you know where to look, and the sponsored links only get traffic from people who were interested in shopping, not people who are mad. So I think the answer to the OP question is that unlike it's competition, Google provided a service it's customers wanted and it's customers kept coming back. Whether that makes it worth $30B with a PE over 300 I kind of doubt; but keep in mind that only about half of those shares will actually be sold. The rest will be paper wealth. |
| Sat 31 Jul | AMS | Berlin, Mac OS X comes with an X Windows implementation, and you can run [X]Emacs and many other X apps in that, or you can run Emacs in text mode in a terminal. There is also a port of Emacs that runs w/out the X layer. Python, Java, etc. is all there. Unless you just like tinkering with the OS and compiling the kernel, etc. or don't want to pay the premium for Apple hardware, Mac OS X is IMO a much easier to manage unix environment than Linux. Updates are automatic and painless, and everything pretty much just works without a lot of tweaking. |
| Sun 01 Aug | bankstrong | It all goes back to the dot-com boom days: network economics. They created a great tool that people love to use and attracted a ton of customers. Then, they converted these customers into one central place for very useful web advertising. There is certainly large value to advertisers in having a simple way to reach out to many customers. However, these customers will only stay in one place if Google's technology forever stays ahead of the competition (doubtful) or if the ads themselves are useful to customers (and by extension, the number of advertisers) (possible). Mike |
| Odd Codes of Conduct | Fri 30 Jul | F. Drebin |
| On my desk is an offer that includes codes of conduct strictly fobidding the use or sale of drugs or alcohol, or unauthorized possession of firearms (authorized by whom then?). That seems peculiar to me--IS it peculiar? Im hesitant to ask if having a beer with a client (or moonlighting as a bartender?) is a firing offense. Its a basic full-time-employee IT consultant arrangement, etc. Beyond that, there is the dilemma of trying to pick interesting work with an unfavorable overtime structure (the offer) over often dull but higher-paying, straight-hourly stuff. -FD |
| Fri 30 Jul | Philo | IMHO, if that doesn't say 'during working hours' then run - no company should try to regulate your life outside the office (especially if it's something legal, like drinking alcohol) I suspect that's just one sign of the weirdness you may encounter in the office, like 'only one photo per desk, must be a tasteful portrait of a spouse or significant other. If you have no spouse or significant other, then you are not to have any photos on your desk. [Note: Photo must be of a member of the opposite sex]' Philo |
| Fri 30 Jul | Data Miner | Have you ever actually encountered such a "photo rule" anywhere? It wouldn't surprise me. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Stan Billingbody | I would ask them what they mean by no alchohol since you are a heavy drinker and the booze is the only thing that keeps you from getitng so pissed off that you bring your guns in and just shoot the place up. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Baaah! | I'm married to my ewe. She is of the opposite gender. Can I keep a photo of her on my desk? |
| Fri 30 Jul | F. Drebin | Stan, thank you for the phrasing. I'll use that. I did, for a period of two months, previously work for another very small consulting shop, and found other employment when they decided to hassle me about getting in at 9:00 sharp--despite having no meetings or anything else to attend to--in the face of a highly variable commute. And I was making them quite a bit of money too. So I can't discount the possibility of personality conflict and unanticipated fiefdom... making myself a strong case here to stay put. -FD |
| Fri 30 Jul | anony coward | I'd expect pretty much everyplace would have a 'no drugs/alcohol/weapons at work' policy so they don't get cleaned out by lawyers like John Edwards the first time someone sprains an ankle. As far as having to choose between interesting work vs better pay, quit whining. |
| Fri 30 Jul | trollop | Baaah! is not a kiwi fruit, then. Generally you have to pay to have fun, and I if were in the happy position of having to choose between higher paid, dull, fixed hour work and entertaining, freewheeling openended fun stuff, I'd plump for having both the time and the money to make my choices out of office hours. And don't take anything with a free pager or cellphone, it gets in the way of drunken gunfights during the commute. There's plenty of dull work around with openended unpaid overtime. Wanna swap? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Philo | Trollop, have you ever lived in an area with heavy, unpredictable traffic? In DC, if you live any distance from the office, it can take between 45 minutes and three hours to get to work. Just one fender-bender, late road construction cleanup, or rain shower can triple your drive time. In the face of that, flex time is a reasonable request. Philo |
| Fri 30 Jul | . | 'I would ask them what they mean by no alchohol since you are a heavy drinker and the booze is the only thing that keeps you from getitng so pissed off that you bring your guns in and just shoot the place up.' Funny you mention this - I was visiting a remote office today and overhead an individual at the elevator voice to his coworker 'I am going to go f***ing postal! I mean it, I'm getting a shotgun!' I was the only one around, and obviously I was game to the wink-wink ha ha statement, but I couldn't help but thinking 'Man, I could so fuck you over with one phone call. Heavy police involvement, almost certain firing, maybe some media'. People are bloody morons. I did nothing, but if I were more fearful that guy would be rethinking his loud mouth. |
| Sat 31 Jul | trollop | Philo, er, no. Unless you count Sydney on a motorbike which had its moments but predated both modern Sydney traffic and flexitime. Who's ever used, or even seen, a timeclock? Or worked in that culture? That's freedom Formerly used to punish the unpunctual, it enabled working around flexitime 'core hours' in a reasonable give-and-take arrangement. Now the performance measured have the luxury of travelling when they want to so long as they hit their targets and get the opportunity to contribute at any point in the day or night or weekend or holiday ... there is no upper limit on the working week. That's progress? I'd suggest buying a motorcycle. Can you buy a gun in DC? Nowadays resident in a city with convenient and reliable public transport.... |
| Sat 31 Jul | Cube Farmer Ed | We have a 'no excessive personal photos' rule, which is subjectively enforced by two old Cubicle Nazi biddies who come around periodically and tell you what needs changing. There's also a 'no item can penetrate of the horizontal plane formed by the top of the cubical walls' rule, so no books or coffee mugs on the top shelves. |
| Sat 31 Jul | trollop | Are you allowed to stand up and scratch? |
| Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | Strange, though the States is strange. If you're a consultant then any non-workplace rules don't apply. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Brent | Rules tell you what people do: I'd put a cool $100 on there being a pistol or hipflask in at least one of your co-workers' desks. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | 'We have a 'no excessive personal photos' rule, which is subjectively enforced by two old Cubicle Nazi biddies who come around periodically and tell you what needs changing.' See, now if I were a superstar there, I'd go overboard. I generally only have one photo on my desk, but I'd make a special effort to have a dozen or more. Obey every single rule to the T except that one. When they tell me to take the photos down, I'd just say 'no, thank you' But then, I'm generally difficult that way. :-) Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Of course, there are often competing codes & even if you follow one set to the T, they can screw you on another one. I'm sure some people who are 'in favor' can get away with breaking the rules, like having a photo of his wife, and one of each of his 3 kids and 1 extra family portrait for a total of 5, but a guy with 1 photo of himself drinking a Budweiser and shooting a gun just outside the office, with the corporate logo visible in the photo would get in trouble. Go figure. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Eric V. | Each time our VP comes by with a customer to visit our building, we have a 'no paper' rule. He wants to show that all our processes are computerized since we're an IT company or whatnot. So, we have to hide all our pens, design sheets, phone numbers sheets, procedure binders, class diagrams, family photos in our drawers. Of course, the days where customers visit our place, productivity is probably near zero. But boy, do we look 'professional' in our IT work. |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Get one of those digital displays that can change photos, and have a screensaver of something like architectural drawings, complete with T square & protractor. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | 'So, we have to hide all our pens, design sheets, phone numbers sheets, procedure binders, class diagrams, family photos in our drawers.' I've always advised anyone who would listen that if they are 'inspecting' or 'reviewing' a workplace and it looks too clean, call the responsible manager on it: 'This place looks too clean; did you really waste dozens of manhours cleaning for my visit? You're an idiot.' Philo |
| Sun 01 Aug | Katie Lucas | At the current role we don't have an office. We used to have an office we'd turn up to once a week, but the main factory building burned down and the office got claimed by 'homeless' staff who needed the space more. The other site doesn't have enough spare space. So we drift from temp home to temp home. And the result is that we really do run almost paper free!! Everything's in LaTeX docs in the subversion repository or in the Wiki or in class diagram files... It's possible. It's not necessarily easy unless you're willing to make compromises (I had to write a decent class diagramming tool in the end) but it CAN be done... |
| Another Linux win is Sun loss | Fri 30 Jul | Formerly someone else |
| Although Lockheed is showing Solaris the door, Microsoft is still welcome. Every engineer has a Microsoft PC sitting next to their Sun Blade, said our source. Thats for business applications, and Linux is no threat there. Its Sun who has to worry. http://neurocrat.com/2004/07/26/lockheed.shtml |
| Sat 31 Jul | karthik | SUN will soon be opening a Barnum circus. I heard the main attraction is McNealy with a Penguin suit. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Wayne | Why do they have two separate PCs? Haven't they heard of emulation? |
| Sat 31 Jul | Tom H | 'Why do they have two separate PCs? Haven't they heard of emulation?' Going to linux workstations sure sounds like a migration strategy to me. |
| Sat 31 Jul | hoser | Outlook. I swear its what keeps Microsoft on the desktop. More specifically, Schedule+, or whatever its called. It is the corporate killer app, and its the baby bottle from which executives suckle. They will not live with their bottle. Until there is an open source solution, there will always be a Windows box nearby. Someone will say 'Evolution'. Been there, tried that. Yuck. There was a script 'killev' which came with earlier versions for a reason. As far as I can tell, killev still needs to be part of the Evolution softwaer suite. |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | I agree, there is nothing as good as Outlook for calender/todo. Why is that? I've looked high & low for something that matches Outlook here, and nothing does. Well, except paper. But nothing on the computer. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Michael Moser | once upon a time there was Netscape Calendar; somehow that was adequate until ... the moment that Netscape Navigator started to sink. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Philo | 'Until there is an open source solution, there will always be a Windows box nearby.' Interesting wording. So you're saying if there was an open source Windows solution that would somehow obviate the need for Windows? I think you meant to say 'Until there is a *linux* solution...' HTH, Philo |
| Storing long-term histograms | Fri 30 Jul | Justin Johnson |
| I have a project where a computer is collecting the cycle count of an injection molding machine via a data acquisition card: the molding machine has a sensor wired to the DAQ that pulses each time the mold closes. This will be repeated for 70 machines here, and more at our other factories. The data collected will be a series of timestamped pulses, and Im having trouble deciding how to store it. The data will be held for a long time in order to generate reports on machine performance. I was thinking of a database table with two fields: machine # and a timestamp, with one record for each. It has the virtue of simplicity, but it seems a little heavy at 12 bytes a pulse. On the other hand, it makes the data easily munge-able with SQL. Is there some normal way of doing this that Im missing? How are analog histograms normally stored? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Justin Johnson | "with one record for each" should read "with one record for each pulse". |
| Fri 30 Jul | schmoe | Not sure what the generally-accepted way of doing this is, but here's what I've done. Create a table of histogram buckets, with the following columns: bucket_id, min_value, max_value, bucket_name. Create a separate table with these columns: bucket_id, count [, other data you might need to filter by, like machine_id, date, etc.]. Straightforward to implement, although you may find it annoying that you can't really tell whether to update or insert when you get a new data point. One problem here is that you can't reliably change the bucket bounds later on. One approach is to define a large number of very finely-spaced buckets, but give several buckets the same name and group by the bucket name when pulling data out. So you could have separate buckets for 0-1 second, 1-2 seconds, 2-3, etc., but have them all named '0-5 seconds'. When you query, just group by bucket_name and sum the counts. If you need more 'big buckets' later on, but they're still oriented on 'little bucket' boundaries, you can do it by changing the association of little buckets to big buckets. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Brent | This is the kind of thing that's traditionally been handled with a flat file. A relational database is overkill, even more so if you don't need transactions and rollback. Is your storage space unduly limited in some way? If not, store your data as tab-delimited ascii and use unix shell tools or perl to munge it. grep, cut, awk! |
| Fri 30 Jul | christopher (baus.net) | Not that I have any experience in data collection, but my personal feeling is that there is no reason not to store data in a structured form anymore. Flat files aren't even less complicated that SQL databases, as everything supports SQL these days. In fact the current generation of programmers seems more comfortable working with 'SELECT FROM' than open(); fseek(). |
| Fri 30 Jul | Rich | If space is really at a premium, you could choose a start timestamp and store the difference between the a machine press and the time stamp. You should be able to store 20 years of hundreths of a second in four bytes + machine id size. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Code Monkey | Simple. If the database supports word use one word field to store seconds since a specific constant time (should give you around 136 years) and use the other word to keep machine id. If your db does not support word type just use 4 bit integer with the high word being machine id and low word being number of seconds since a constant time. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Forbes | If you mean a word as 16-bits (as it traditionally is) that's only 65535 seconds, which is about only about 18 hours (60*60*18). In any case there's a crucial requirement missing, which is how frequently the mold presses, and what the required timing accuracy must be. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Philo | The problem is that you want to index the machine #, and possibly the time stamp. That means you've got a HUGE overhead on an itty-bitty insert, which affects your scalability. So the other option is to write to a delimited text file, then BCP the data into SQL every so often (if the machines are offline at night - voila!) This distributes your processing power, minimizing your hardware requirements. Philo |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Forbes | This is against every database design norm (and I cringe even writing it), but if you really want to save space, consider a separate table for each machine eliminating the need for the machine # (as it can be artificially created in the view). This will have the additional benefit of automatically partitioning the data such that there will be no contention as separate machines pulse. On the flip side with a platform like SQL Server 2000 or above it lends itself to horizontal partitioning (I don't know what platform you're using, but just throwing it out) For querying you'll do that through a partitioned view so it will transparently query the separate tables (on different machines if desired, sharing the load). CREATE VIEW MachinePerformance AS SELECT 1,pulse_time FROM Server1.MachineData.dbo.MachinePerformance1 UNION ALL SELECT 2,pulse_time FROM Server1.MachineData.dbo.MachinePerformance2 ... UNION ALL SELECT 98,pulse_time FROM Server4.MachineData.dbo.MachinePerformance98 |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Forbes | Hrmmm...skip that idea. With an artificial key the view isn't updatable. Damn those artificial keys! In any case it's still a potential performance improvement with actual primary keys (hence no space savings) and with table check constraints. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Justin Johnson | Very interesting answers. To clarify our particular situation: we're using MS SQL Server 2000 on Windows 2000. The machines cycle once overy 20-180 seconds, and we have 70 machines. The pulse is on-off (or rather, off with a pulse occurring at a single point in each cycle). Storage space is plentiful, and my first guess (machine #, timestamp) won't unduly stress either the hard drives or the processors. It's just that something bothers me about using something like a relational database, with all that overhead, to store something so simple. On the other hand, we've already paid for the overhead, and nothing about this system will cause usage peaks--all the work will be evenly distributed around the clock. I was hoping that there was some more *elegant* way to do it. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Forbes | Ultimately the most elegant solution is a simple machine #, datetime -- virtually anything else (such as custom time storage in alternate data types) will be classified as a 'hack' by all who follow. Given the rather light insert demands over an average period, I wouldn't bother with any custom solutions on the database end. Getting the data from your data acq software to the database, on the other hand, could use some customization - given the highly variable amount of data coming in, consider serializing the data writes to the database - such as a single pooled queued object. Thus if 70 machines all triggered at once, there is no backlog or contention on the database -- the queue will build up momentarily (presumably you'll have datetime stamped the data on acquisition rather than on the insert into the database) and the queued component can individually insert each record into the database, allowing plenty of time for the database to maintain indexes, whatever. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Nix | I think you don't know what is a histogram better check before using the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histogram If you really need a histogram, a tiny file with some counters (one for each bin) is enough. |
| Fri 30 Jul | trollop | I did a logger for a mobile pavement testing vehicle some time ago that put timestamped observations onto a removable harddrive for nightly upload to Foxbase. Later did one end of a logger that had to get it right over homebrew TCP/IP from a state-of-the-ark lottery system. Both systems stored data as it happened, timestamped, together with significant events such as machine startup/shutdown, operator comment ... into sequentially named ASCII flat files onto the disk as fast as possible. The second system used RAID 1 mirrored hard disks and another processing thread copied the data onwards to a remote machine via a VPN. Justified paranoia. Never throw anything away. Timestamp everything that happens. Equipment, especially storage, is cheap. Raw data is irreplaceable. Use one file sequence per machine logged. Have all timestamps come from the one clock. IMHO, going directly from DAQ to SQL is way too perilous. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Brent | elegant? I dunno, I think the unix flat-file approach is elegant in its own perverse way. You could always use a WWV radio and a two-track tape recorder... |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | 'The machines cycle once overy 20-180 seconds' Why the wide range? Different kinds of work? [not related to the solution - just curious] Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | Justin Johnson | The business does injection molding, where a mold is filled with liquid plastic under pressure, then cooled and solidified in the mold. Smaller molds mean less plastic mean quicker cooling, and the size of the molds we use goes from little ones that are a foot on a side to large ones that are six feet tall. The cycle time is largely determined by how quickly you can get a solid piece of plastic out of it that won't warp. |
| Sat 31 Jul | bah_humbug | I second trollop's comments: raw data is invaluable. In my experience, you give people one view and they say 'wow. what about changes over time' (or something). If you've got all the raw data, you can do magic things: maybe one machine cycles 0.3 seconds slower than the others, but prdouces higher quality output. You'd not see that in a histogram, or highly compressed data. And keep it simple. No storage approach that saves about a gig of disk space per year can't possibly be cost effective compared with the time to implement and debug it. |
| Sun 01 Aug | AllanL5 | For raw data capture, I think a text file is simpler than a database. Sure, a single 'INSERT INTO' command takes up the same amount of CODE as a 'fprint('...\n');. But, the amount of processing is much less with the text file. Eventually, you'll want to put some extracted/summarized version of the data into the database for analysis. But it's nice to have the raw version around for later analysis. |
| what cars do geeks drive? | Fri 30 Jul | Desi Inside |
| I ........... Mitsubishi (TURBO) Eclipse GS 1999 (Silver cutie) how bout ya all? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Ryan | I have a Mazda6. I love it more than anyone ever should love an inanimate object. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | That Toyota Prius thing that's hybrid gas/electric? |
| Fri 30 Jul | saberworks | Jeep Wrangler |
| Fri 30 Jul | Stimulate that Simulator | 1999 Hyundai Tiburon |
| Fri 30 Jul | Subway Guy | http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?28744 That's my ride. Beat that! |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bill Rushmore | Saab Viggen. |
| Fri 30 Jul | GiorgioG | VW Golf |
| Fri 30 Jul | Chris Tavares | 2003 VW Passat |
| Fri 30 Jul | hoser | 1990 BMW 525, very good condition. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Steve Barbour | 87 Toyota 4X4 |
| Fri 30 Jul | Jonathan Briggs | 2001 Subaru RS2.5 |
| Fri 30 Jul | Phil | Audi TT FWD 180 .... and you can hook your notebook to it for some hacking fun (http://www.ross-tech.com/vag-com/product.html) http://highoctane.be/pictures/TT/slides/Dashboard.JPG http://highoctane.be/pictures/TT/slides/Side.JPG Quite fast & fun to drive. |
| Fri 30 Jul | jfm424 | 1997 Toyota Tercel WHAT?! |
| Fri 30 Jul | PopCulture | i drive a p.o.s. '97 saturn SC2 with 150,000 miles, a busted A/C, no stereo, and a sunroof that won't shut all the way... but I only have to drive once every month or two- city living is expensive but convienient... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Ham Fisted | 1987 Toyota Corolla. 220,000 miles. There are better things to spend money on... |
| Fri 30 Jul | The Not-So-Philosopher | 1998 Chevy Venture mini-van. Yes, this geek has reproduced. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Eric Sink | Chevy Avalanche |
| Fri 30 Jul | That's me in the corner | Dodge Durango |
| Fri 30 Jul | Audio Science | F-150 |
| Fri 30 Jul | _ | Montana M2K Metallic Pea Family Truckster... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Flasher T | 'Mitsubishi (TURBO) Eclipse GS 1999 (Silver cutie)' Ummm... no. If it's a turbo, it's either a GST (front wheel drive) or a GSX (all wheel drive). The GS is naturally aspirated. The Mazda6 is gorgeous though. |
| Fri 30 Jul | The Wanderer | 01 Mercury Cougar...not stock. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Fred | http://www.krad24.de/Motorraeder/Kawasaki/ZRX_1200S/Bilder/zrx12sblu.jpg |
| Fri 30 Jul | Flasher T | '01 Mercury Cougar...not stock.' What can you possibly do to the engine in an 01 Cougar? Could throw it out and swap in the one from the SVT Focus, I guess... *long-time lurker finally in his own element :D* |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bill Carlson | 1998 Honda Accord Coupe. I wanted a vehicle that said nothing whatsoever about my personality. I think I got what I was looking for... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Desi Inside | @Falsher
<'Mitsubishi (TURBO) Eclipse GS 1999 (Silver cutie)'
|
| Fri 30 Jul | The Wanderer | Flasher T Admittly there are limited options with it. Some have achieved impressive things. A turbo-kit is out there, but it has grenaded some engines. Some people are even throwing 3L Escape engines in there. What can I say except I mainly bought the car for its looks. Unless something great comes in the next few years I will have an STi |
| Fri 30 Jul | JWA | Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, Lotus Elise (on order), MV Agusta F4S, and I race formula cars and supermoto |
| Fri 30 Jul | JWA | ...but I'm not a geek. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Michael Ealem | www.ridewta.com |
| Fri 30 Jul | Formerly someone else | Isuzu Trooper |
| Fri 30 Jul | Ryan Phelps | 2000 BMW 528i for the last 3 months. Buy the car you want, not the car you should get. You will never regret it (unless you want a crappy car). |
| Fri 30 Jul | joev | '99 Suzuki 650SVs Good milage, cheap to park. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Sgt. Sausage | Anything that's more than 6 years old. Currently, we have: 1996 Plymouth Voyager 1990 Dodge Shadow 1997 Acura Integra We switch a lot, but I primarily drive the van (toting systems to clients doesn't work well with either of the other two.) The wife primarily drives the Integra, and we use the Shadow when either is in the shop. Since we started college (1990-ish), we've always driven something old. You'd be amazed how much $$$ it saves. We did it in school 'cause, well, we couldn't afford anything but cheap, crap cars. We do it now so we can finance the other finer things in life we like to enjoy. A car just gets us from A to B and neither of us are into flashy, expensive cars. |
| Fri 30 Jul | MilesArcher | 1991 Mazda Miata. I want one of the new Lotus Elises. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Clay Whipkey | Currently a 2001 Honda Civic. The object of my vehicular desire at the moment is the new Chrysler 300 M. Damn that thing is sick. Oh, and if the money ever gets to a high level, I am determined to build a custom chopper. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Berlin Brown | 2002 Chevy Malibu, nothing fancy it just works |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Forbes | 1998 Dodge Neon with 208,000+ km. It runs great, and given that I put 95km or so a day on it I just haven't been able to rationalize buying a new car. Our child transport is a 2003 Honda Odyssey - you wouldn't believe the gas that thing goes through just doing small jaunts around town. The Acura TL is mighty enticing though... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Brent | A 1976 Mercedes-Benz 300D with a second tank in the trunk. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Sassy | 2003 Mini Cooper, but it's going to be a babied '87-90 e40 5-Series, eventually. |
| Fri 30 Jul | bashful | 1996 Corolla wagon. I don't care about cars; they're boring. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Clutch Cargo | Lexus SC 300. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Jay | 1986 Porsche 911 Carrera I like it. |
| Fri 30 Jul | dir at badblue com | I posted an illustrated automotive history a while back on my blog: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2003/12/very-personal-automotive-history-1982.html |
| Fri 30 Jul | Eric Debois | 99 Ford Focus Wagon. (Yes, there are 99s) |
| Fri 30 Jul | christopher (baus.net) | Subaru Legacy. Subaru makes the best mountain cars. Our office parking lot looks like a Subaru dealership. Now if I could only justify the STI. The viscous limited slip works, and with a low center of gravity, and Blizzaks I'll pass most SUVs in the worst Sierra storms. Good cars. Now if I could only justify the WRX STI. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Tom Vu | Trek mountain bike |
| Fri 30 Jul | Data Miner | Colnago CT-1 |
| Fri 30 Jul | Pedro | 2001 BMW 330i in the spring, summer, and fall 1996 Pontiac Sunfire for the winters |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.ChristopherHawkins.com | 2000 Camry. 2000 Explorer. |
| Fri 30 Jul | ; | 1997 Nissan Maxima 1997 Ford Expedition when I need to pick something up from HomeDepot or Lowe's. Otherwise, the wife normally drives it. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Formerly someone else | Christopher, I'll second you on the Subaru. My wife has an Outback that I love to drive. My Trooper will go through more sheer snow, but the Subaru handles better on ice, slush etc, and I can go faster around the curves on dry pavement. The Trooper is nice though I got the last model year they offered the 10 year 120k warranty. We will most likely drive these into the ground and then buy new again. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Egor | 1995 Lada Samara. I'm just special. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Anonx | 2003 Chevy Silverado Z-71 extended cab |
| Sat 31 Jul | Sam Livingston-Gray | Several: - Vision short wheelbase recumbent bicycle (http://www.bicycleman.com/recumbents/vision/vision_r40.htm), - carsharing (http://www.flexcar.com), - bus (http://www.trimet.org), - and my partner's '93 Civic LX when she's not using it for work. (= |
| Sat 31 Jul | bah_humbug | bicycle and feet I hire if I need to, then take the cheapest class C on the lot |
| Sat 31 Jul | Björn Roth | None, taking the tube. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Flasher T | Oh, in case anyone's interested (I don't expect you are), I used to drive a 1976 Volvo 245, bought with the express intention of beating the crap out of it. Ran into the back of a van about a month and a half ago. |
| Sat 31 Jul | hoser | I'm interested. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Eric V. | Buick LeSabre 1990. When you're very tall, only a big fat american car will do the trick. |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | > - Vision short wheelbase recumbent bicycle > (http://www.bicycleman.com/recumbents/vision/vision_r40.htm), That looks really interesting, I bet you get a lot of looks riding that. How's the ventilation on the seat? It looks like your back/bottom would sweat a lot unless it was a real breezy mesh. > - carsharing (http://www.flexcar.com), We have something like that.. Zipcar I think. I never was sure if the pricing & difficulty of getting to a pickup location would make it worth it for me though. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Ray | Until April of this year it was a 1996 Ford Escort LX. I got a really good deal (about 25-30% off what they are going for in the classifieds) on a 2002 Volvo S60. Quite a step up and I intend to drive this one into the ground. The Escort has 213,000 km on it (/1.6 to get miles) and still runs great. If anyone wants it and is in the Toronto area, speak up. :) |
| Sat 31 Jul | Brad Wilson | 2004 Subaru STi. http://dotnetguy.techieswithcats.com/archives/004162.shtml The ultimate mountain car! :) |
| Sun 01 Aug | TheGeezer | BMW 328i Coupe. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Katie Lucas | An 03 Hyundai Coupe (called Tiburon in the states). I love it to bits. I just wish I'd bought the v6 version, but when I bought it I was doing 30,000 miles a year and couldn't justify the petrol cost... |
| Sun 01 Aug | Gary van der Merwe | 1965 MG B GT I want to find a rubbernose one so I can put a V8 into it. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Nemesis | I'm not really a geek, but at the moment I still drive my Lexus GS300SE. I'm planning to upgrade to a Noble M14, when they come out: http://www.seriouswheels.com/top-2005-Noble-M14.htm Mid-life crisis on wheels ;-) |
| Sun 01 Aug | www.marktaw.com | > Noble M14 Wow. |
| Sun 01 Aug | _ | M14... One of the options is a Living Will and a Plot. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Ramu Karyat | Ambassador Nova |
| Lookout was bought to beat Google? | Fri 30 Jul | KayJay |
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=technologyNews&storyID=5820713
...but Microsoft vice president Yusuf Mehdie gave the clearest signal yet that Microsoft would enter the local hard drive search space, considered the next battleground among search technology providers. We will be able to search beyond the Web in a very fast fashion, Mehdie told analysts and reporter gathered at Microsofts Redmond, Washington, headquarters for its annual analysts meeting. ... Earlier this month, Microsoft bought Lookout, a small program that allows users of its Outlook e-mail, contacts and scheduling program to bypass the search tools provided by Microsoft and sift through e-mail, contacts and other information with keywords. Results by Lookout, which can also search through files on the hard drive, are returned nearly instantaneously. Microsoft gave no indication whether it used any technology from Lookout for its new search technology. ... In a demonstration, Mehdie typed search terms into a prototype version of MSN Toolbar, which runs as an add-on to the Internet Explorer browser. Search results, such as e-mail, e-mail attachments, pictures and documents, were also returned nearly instantaneously. Results from the Web for the same search terms were displayed on a separate pane to the right. |
| Fri 30 Jul | rz | Looks like Microsoft is going to use its desktop muscle to crush competition again. |
Fri 30 Jul | KayJay | It is interesting to note that a fellow co-respondent here at JoS, Peter Horadan, mentioned Google will come up with the additional tab for the local disk in the search results. An point of view I shared. Looks like MS beat Google to it.
Google already has a skunkworks to do what X1 does. It's not hard to imagine an experience where you type your search into Google, and one more tab along the top (images, news, etc) is 'my pc'. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | MS has the "it comes with windows, so when you search it'll be our search engine" thing, but Google is... well, Google. They already read all of our searches & email, so why not our entire hard drive as well. |
| Fri 30 Jul | KayJay | Ah! But it is an _add-on_ to IE. For MSN search. So by indexing and searching your HD, google+ctrl+enter will slowly move to msn+ctrl+enter. It need not "come with Windows". More plug-ins for more browsers or make IE downloadable again. If search is the next big thing, (I have my doubts about that, but I'll have to formulate my thoughts some more before I say more on that) MS is sure to change its business model for its web browser. |
| Fri 30 Jul | kc | Unlikely. Lookout is based on Lucene from the Apache Foundation. It is governed by that license and it's unlikely that MS would seek to distribute anything that they did not have control over the licensing. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Oren | That demonstration was just a preview. There is no release date, only 'before Longhorn'. Google can still beat Microsoft to the punch, and probably will. See article at news.com: http://news.com.com/Microsoft+puts+multisearch+tool+on+show/2100-1008_3-5289463.html |
| Fri 30 Jul | am I missing something? | If regular users need to search their entire hard drives for something like a letter, there's somethig wrong with the OS. If a user doesn't know if something is on their hard drive or the Internet, there's something wrong with the user. And how much innovation and magic is really needed to quickly search My Documents for the letter I wrote last year? |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Most people don't have a schema & a taxonomy by which they store their information. Most people place things randomly, and in an extremely disorganized fashion, dicated by their whims & not any formal, repeatable logic. Computers, on the other hand.. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Ward | am I missing something? >>> And how much innovation and magic is really needed to quickly search My Documents for the letter I wrote last year? And how often do I want to search my computer for a letter I wrote and simultaneously search the Internet for the same topic? I can't think of any type of search I do on the Internet, that I also do on my PC. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Forbes | 'And how often do I want to search my computer for a letter I wrote and simultaneously search the Internet for the same topic?' Exactly - this has brought up several times in the 'search comes local' discussions, and it just isn't rational -- what I search for online is entirely different than what I search for locally. SEARCH: My credit card # |
| Fri 30 Jul | AMS | Where local search could become a useful thing is to create virtual folders or views of your files. Outlook 2003 can do this now with email -- they call it Search Folders -- and I like it. The advantage is that I don't have to ever physically organize my emails into folders -- no matter how you do it, e.g. by date, by topic, by sender, etc. it quickly breaks down and you have stuff that does not neatly fit into one category, or you don't remember where you put something when you try to find it later, or you are like me and not diciplined enough to properly file every email. In outlook, I now leave all my email in one folder. Using Search Folders, I can create views for mail from a person, or based on subject, or whatever I define in a search query. It really is better than any physical organization scheme I have ever tried. Extending the idea to the local hard drive, with virtual folders, you could create a view of your files that includes all files that mention a person's name, or a project, or span a date range, etc. That would allow rapid resorting and reorganization of your information without having to move the underlying files at all, and it allows the same file to appear in multiple folders if it's relevant, even though there's just one underlying copy. |
| Sat 31 Jul | KayJay | AMS, BeOS been doing that since '97. |
| Sun 01 Aug | no name | > AMS, BeOS been doing that since '97. And by 2007, MS should have it as standard in their latest OS version. Sounds like the MS research division is keeping to its usual timeline. :) |
| Sun 01 Aug | Jonny Boy | Everyone makes such a big deal out of something like LookOut. I am not impressed at all out of some open source project that added some little features to help me search for mail!!!! O please....what a concept...old news...what's next in line ??? Serving ticket whaaaaaaaaaaa |
| Home or professional office? | Fri 30 Jul | Janek |
| I run a small but growing company in California doing consulting for software programming, web design, e-commerce, etc. Currently, I am working with 1-2 other employees and we all telecommute. I was considering getting a professional office for us downtown somewhere, but wanted to know if the benefits outweighed the risks. We usually work with clients out of state or too far to travel to, but occasionally clients do visit my home and it seems very unprofessional. We make a pretty good profit, so I dont think money is an issue at this point (well depending on the rent of the office space of course, I was thinking maybe 300-400 a month?). Does anyone here have their own business like I do and works out of home or in a professional office (besides Joel...)? Whats the best way to go? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bicuspix | '300-400' In California? Are you sure you live there? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Stefan | If it's just for the occasional customer-comes-to-my-place thing and your team works fine the way it is, save the rent and get a nice room from an office-service (not sure about the right English word) just when you need it. Just an idea, might not be the best solution, though. Stefan |
| Fri 30 Jul | Janek | Yeah, I've seen office space for 300-400 dollars for 1-2 developers. This is downtown Sacramento, mind you, where the rent isn't too bad (yet).. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mark Hoffman | '300-400' Yeah, I was gonna ask the same thing...300-400 seems awfully cheap for California. I live in the Dallas area where rents are pretty low and I can't even find a closet for $300-400/month. As to your question...I also work out of my house, but as my consulting business has grown I've been forced to consider moving into an office. I enjoy working out of the house and it's certainly cheaper, but I'll be hiring someone soon and so I'll be moving into an office. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Janek | Mark, that sounds good. It's not so much that I want to get a professional office for the "occasional" client, but I want to be able to physically work with my other employees, not having to rely on IM or phone. Also, having a professional office when clients call and ask where they can meet you totally makes them trust you more as far I see it.. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Stefan | Speaking about that whole consulting thing - how did you guys start consulting? I mean, this won't get me out of the responsibility to actually WORK, but I could imagine, consulting is something I can use my talents at. So, just how did you start and what were your first jobs? Stefan |
| Fri 30 Jul | Janek | Stefan: I put an ad in the yellow pages for my business when I first started out. I also advertise on CraigsList, Google Adwords, etc, and of course networking with family members and who they know, etc. Perhaps the word 'consulting' doesn't apply to my business anymore, since we are a full-service business doing web design, server scripting, software programming, etc. So in a nutshell, try to fill a need first and then ask around to people who might need that need :) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mark Hoffman | Stefan, My consulting business started when I was working for someone else and people kept calling me saying 'Hey, Joe Blow referred me to you and I need some software...' Eventually, my consulting work took more of my time so I left my regular job. I was enormously fortunate that many of these clients had large, long term projects. They have provided a steady base of revenue while I grow the business. So, having a good network of people you know (oh, and a good reputation as a problem solver!) is really key. That, plus lots of luck. :') |
| Fri 30 Jul | Name witheld | I prefer working from home. My boss tends to meet clients in a restaurant, with a laptop if necessary. His boss doesn't have an office either: meets clients on his yacht, or in Hawaii. |
| Fri 30 Jul | old_timer | New business incubators have facilities such as this. You share an office space and a receptionist and the phones which are redirected to home most of the time. 4 or 5 startups can occupy a small suite of offices, conference room, etc. Most of these incubators are attached to universities and many of them require that you be a graduate of theirs or in some other way affilliated, like Profs. There are some rust-belt cities that have incubators of their own in an attempt to spawn new business growth, but they're generally more difficult to deal with and become politcal footballs. But in any case 300-400 a month ain't going to cut it even with those arrangements. You might also look for some local small business like an insurance underwriter or travel agency that will sub-lease some office space if they have an excess. Making it appear like your own can be a problem there. |
| Fri 30 Jul | trollop | Got kids? It's possible to work from home with children and even gain & maintain a professional image if you manage the phone thing. Line 1 home / fax Line 2 'office'/DSL Keep teenagers away from Line 2, in or outgoing. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Gerald | Check out Regus offices, they have a shared office concept and also support part time use. They have a location in Sacremento and it sounds like they would fit your needs. The company I work for in Toronto uses them and they provide great facilities. Another benefit is because they have so many locations, if you need a meeting room in a different city like LA for a client they can provide one. http://www.regus.com/ |
| Fri 30 Jul | Sgt. Sausage | I'd have to agree with most everybody else. $300 to 400 will buy you a cube. That's it. 10 x 10 if you're lucky. We were in the same boat when we started. The telecommute thing worked for about the first 2, maybe 2 and a half years -- until we started growing. Once there were enough of us, it was a pain in the arse. What we did: We bought our office. It's a small 3-bedroom house. Well, it was a house at some time back in the 1950s. It's been converted to office space. We struggled long and hard with the 'rent/lease -vs- buy' decision. Rent/lease is better from the standpoint that it can be short-term, maintenance and whatnot is taken care of by the landlord/management company. Cost was why we bought. It cost us about 45% on a month-to-month baseis -- 45% of what we could lease similar space for at a decent office complex. We get a tax benefit in 'phantom' losses on the depreciation of building, and we're building equity. It does have its downsides -- we had to put a new roof on last year and next year we're looking at resurfacing the parking lot next year. When you add in all those 'unplanned' type expenses, it still costs us far less -- maybe 60% of what we'd be spending on lease for the same space. FYI -- it's costing us a bit under 2K a month -- that's mortgage, insurance, tax, utilities (electric, water, etc), expense (like the roof, parking lot, etc). This is in rural Ohio. The same space at a decent office complex in our area would go for about $3300 to $3500 a month. We've been here for 4 years now, and we make an extra payment each quarter. We're on a 15 year mortgage, so the equity is building rather quickly, especially with the extra payments. If we stay another 7 years, it's paid for and we'll have free rent, plus we'll have the equity in the place as an asset for the company. I imagine you're really kidding yourself, especially in California, if you think three to four hundred a month is going to do it. Ours is working out to three to four hundred a month *per employee*, and we're in rural OH -- you're in a high-rent district: CA. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.ChristopherHawkins.com | What part of CA are you in? I'm in Central Cali, and $300 - $400 will get you a single office in a suite of offices here. I have seen 1000 sq ft. suites with 3 offices, plus reception area and conference room for $750 and up. When I lived on the coast, it was much, much higher. |
| Fri 30 Jul | kc | Have you considered adding a pseudo-professional office onto your house? Something that has a definitely personal touch, but clearly delineated from the rest of the house? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Fred | If customers come to visit you (instead of your going to their place, in which problem solved), and it's only very occasional, there's probably some hotel in the area that rents small conference rooms that you could rent. That's why my dad did in the past before he bought his office. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.alexlechuck.com | Janek, What exactly and where in CA can you rent for $400? I am very, very interested. |
| Fri 30 Jul | MilesArcher | California is a big state. About the size of Germany. There are cheap areas (still) but the desirable areas near the big cities are expensive. I just drove through Lodi last weekend and it looked like it would be pretty cheap there. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Philo | 'but I want to be able to physically work with my other employees' Why? Find a 'virtual office' as mentioned previously. They have meeting rooms you can reserve - meet with your employees once every two weeks. If you need to meet with consultants more often than that, either you or they need to go. Philo |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | > We usually work with clients out of state or too far to travel to, but occasionally clients do visit my home and it seems very unprofessional. If you think it will make a difference in productivity for your staff then get an office so your staff can work face to face. If you need to work together with your clients (and your client's team) in a conference room environment then rent it as you go (hotels and airports all rent them) or get a nice studio where you can fit it in. Just think about what you need. For some it is a cost of doing business, you can't put on a suit but go to the kitchen. |
| Fri 30 Jul | example | >> Have you considered adding a pseudo-professional office onto your house? << Better talk to your accountant before doing this. There are serious tax implications. Plus it makes selling your house more difficult. |
| Sun 01 Aug | no name | > There are serious tax implications Tax (and other) laws apply the moment you start a home based business - check with a lawyer, of course, but if there's any sensible set of rules to precisely define the difference between 'I happened to build a spare room and it's being used as an office for my home business just now' vs 'I explicitly built an office attached to my house but for strictly business use' then I'll be quite impressed. Still, it's always worth checking what tax deductions are legally available - 'serious implications' don't always have to be jail time. :) > Plus it makes selling your house more difficult. ...unless you want to sell to someone who thinks that a high quality extra room that can be used for an office, a study, a spare bedroom or any number of other options. If that sounds reasonable, then adding an office (which is different to dropping an ugly pre-fab at a weird angle in the middle of the front yard) may well actually be a good thing to do in terms of property value. Hell, failing to add the office will decrease the value of the property in the eyes of someone who actually would like the extra room. Having said that, my personal opinion is that building a house with a reasonable likelyhood of spending the next 50 years in it means that constantly obsessing over the resale value is kinda silly - especially when one of the more common property investment strategies (at the moment, where I live) is 'knock the house down and build a block of ugly apartment buildings on the site'. I wish people would share the crystal ball they use to determine property values for the next 50 years. |
| Can do anything with software | Fri 30 Jul | xyzzy |
| Ive heard managers say too many times, Anything can be done in software when discussing new projects. How do you respond to this? Do you really think there are no limits as to what can be done with software? |
| Fri 30 Jul | OP | Anything is impossible until some comes along and does it. Therefore, anything can be done with anything including software. |
| Fri 30 Jul | bpd | My VP likes to say... "It's just a matter of time, talent and money." How do you argue with that? When miracles are required, it just comes down to the fact that I don't have the requisite *talent*. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Peter | I remember being in a meeting with other developers and managers, and they wanted some sort of task done, and all the (non-college educated) developers were saying it would be easy. And folks hated when I got up and started explaining that not only wasn't going to be easy, and that this was an np-complete problem. It took about an hour to explain why the problem was exponetial in time executed, what that meant, and why if the marketing folks got the growth rate they were looking for, they would be looking at taking several years to run each days processing. Can you do anything with software? A sarcastic cynic would ask your program to fetch him some coffee. Sure, a lot of things can be done in software, but it may take a long time to do. There are a lot of problems that can be turned into a travelling salesman problem, and that takes n! time to solve. Cream and 2 sugars please. |
| Fri 30 Jul | old_timer | Stand up, piss on his desk, ask can this be done in software? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Andrew Cherry | Simply tell him that it's true, and it does only take time, talent and money. Say you'll provide the infinite talent required when he provides the infinite cash and money. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Wayne | I remember reading an article recently where all of the 'educated' folks were arguing that something couldn't be done. It's a good thing that this guy was stupid enough to believe that he could do it, because he actually got the job done. I forget who it was, something about making CPU's run at faster cycles. |
| Fri 30 Jul | MilesArcher | Too many times a programmer will say that it can't be done when he really means: 1) I think it's a stupid idea 2) I don't know how to do it 3) I have an idea on how to do it, but it's hard and will take a lot of work If you can write down a process for a person to do it, you can do it with software. If it requires something that you can't formalize, then it is likely to be a very hard problem to solve. |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | What dat guy said. I say nothing's impossible in software as well (except when I'm fixing a bug, when it becomes "This is fscking impossible!"). |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | Peter, I like how you worked in the holier-than-thou attitude about non-college educated programmers. Plenty of us do space/time complexity analysis too, you know. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Daniel Howard | You just can't argue rationally with some people. Many people, particularly managers, end up believing what they want to believe. When somebody uses a pithy saying to end an argument, it is either meant as (a) a joke or (b) a signal that the person has already made up his mind and any further discussion will be ignored. In real life, you've just got to accept that companies often ignore good advice and do dumb things. It's not your company; it's not your call. You've done your best to give them the benefit of your experience and that's all you can do. If they don't want to benefit from it, that's their problem. If they want you to labor endlessly on a fool's errand, well, it's their money. I call it the One Time Rule: If you've made your case once and they still don't believe you, it isn't your problem anymore. If you feel bad because they imply that a lack of talent or dedication is why *you* can't do it, you've just got to get over that feeling. Focus on your opinion (and pride) of yourself, not other's opinions of you. Only one person is the world's best programmer; the remaining 5 billion are inferior in some way. Ethically, you are only responsible for making a *reasonable* attempt to make your employer satisfied. In the end, you provide a service. If your employer pays for that service, he's essentially telling you that he likes the service enough to pay for it. If your employer discontinues that service (i.e. fires you), he's essentially telling you that he doesn't like or need that service. Lots of people cancel their cable TV service because they don't want it, don't need it or think that it sucks. So what? Maybe your employer doesn't want your service anymore but somebody else might. Just because one person thinks that a service sucks that doesn't mean that nobody else in the whole world wants it. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Justin Johnson | Yes, pretty much anything can be done in software. The question is always whether it can be done *economically*. Hit him with that, and you'll probably find a little bit more respect from your boss because you've shown an understanding of his side of the problem. |
| Fri 30 Jul | sir_flexalot | How about "anything can be done with software, but we don't have an infinite budget or infinite time, so there will be limitations." |
| Fri 30 Jul | Code Monkey | No...the truth is anything can be done with enough AND, OR and NOT gates and a big beach full of sand :-) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Peter | >I like how you worked in the holier-than-thou attitude about non-college educated programmers. If you had taken college classes in CS, you would have taken a class on algorithms. Things like the 'big-Oh' notation. I've never seen a self taught programmer who knew what it was about. At that company, there were 2 college educated programmers and about 50 self-taught ones. Why is bubble-sort a bad sort, and quick-sort much better? Can you get a sort algorithm to work in better than n*log(n) time? You would learn that in college. There is a reason that academic research in software development is 5-30+ years ahead of the industry. And why people in this industry keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again. Thanks for pointing the reason out. Are your feelings hurt? Too bad. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Robert 'Groby' Blum | 'Things like the 'big-Oh' notation. I've never seen a self taught programmer who knew what it was about.' Maybe you need to expand your horizons... There are plenty who do know what it is about. 'Why is bubble-sort a bad sort, and quick-sort much better? ' If I was facetious, I'd complain that this is the problem with college educated programmers - They only remember the average case and forget about the worst case... Fact of the matter is that good programmers continue to learn and will know things like that, and bad programmers don't. In no way related to where you got your initial education. All that does is give you a starting point. 'There is a reason that academic research in software development is 5-30+ years ahead of the industry.' They don't have performance/budget constraints? Kidding aside - that is at least completely untrue in the graphics arena. A large percentage of last SIGGRAPH's presentation was made by people working for actual companies, not for universities. 'And why people in this industry keep making the same mistakes over and over and over again.' Because they have set world views and don't want to learn new things? 'Are your feelings hurt? Too bad.' Not at all - I *am* college-educated, after all. It's just that I have and had plenty of non-college co-workers that were showing me things I didn't know. Maybe we can just stop the stereotyping now? |
| Fri 30 Jul | me@me.com | Whenever my boss asks that I say, 'I can do anything given anough time. How much longer over-due is acceptable for this project?' Usuallly, the answer is, 'OK, forget it.' |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | >Things like the 'big-Oh' notation. I've never seen a self >taught programmer who knew what it was about. Maybe you're making conclusions from a sample size that's too small. How many 'self taught' programmers have you known? Anyway, space/time complexity analysis (e.g. best case, worst case, average case) is something that I think pretty much everybody knows. They introduce it in the first couple chapters of SICP, which is what most college freshmen are taught as an introduction to CS. Incidentally, I think that 'self taught' is kind of inaccurate in most cases. I think that I'm just as much 'self taught' as somebody who takes a class with the textbooks I've read. >Why is bubble-sort a bad sort, and quick-sort much >better? Can you get a sort algorithm to work in better >than n*log(n) time? You would learn that in college. Sure that's great. Everybody should know this stuff, I agree. But do you think that there's something magical about the chairs that you sit in or the building you listen to lectures in? >There is a reason that academic research in software >development is 5-30+ years ahead of the industry. Where that's true, it's true because academic institutions with essentially limitless funding are able to work on projects for as long as they'd like. It's not because industry is full of 'idiots who can't pick the right sorting function'. >And why people in this industry keep making the same >mistakes over and over and over again. Thanks for >pointing the reason out. Are your feelings hurt? Too bad. My feelings aren't hurt. Actually I've got that 'watching a train wreck' feeling. I know that one of these days you'll think back on how much of a prick you were and you'll wince. I'm happy with the level of experience I've got so far. I've written an efficient compiler, 3D games from the ground up, a relational database system, made a computer from transistors and basic parts, and so on. Doing space/time complexity analysis is a footnote. |
| Sat 31 Jul | . | Peter, it's wankers like you who cause the problems in the industry. The biggest disasters I've seen in my career in every case have been created by 'college-educated' programmers. And I am talking about filthy messes of spaghetti code, abut huge jobs by consulting companies that just don't work. The beauty is that a self-taught or other -educated programmer is only there because he has succeeded. He never gets a job on the basis of having spent three or four years at such and such university. Nor on getting a recommendation from the course advisers he sucked up to. I actually think the academic gig in CS is one of the biggest rorts going. |
| Sat 31 Jul | no name | >The beauty is that a self-taught or other -educated >programmer is only there because he has succeeded. That isn't necessarily true. He could be there because his dad owns the company. |
| Sun 01 Aug | matt | Like... solving the halting problem! eh... wait... |
| Sun 01 Aug | matt | Oh and: >Things like the 'big-Oh' notation. I've never seen a self >taught programmer who knew what it was about. I stand up as a counter-example. That said I have done a maths degree. Just no programming classes. There is something rather ugly about big Oh as a mathematical notation, I reckon. It tends to be used very ambiguously by people who don't quite understand what it's saying mathematically. I mean things like f(x) = O(x^2 log x) just look like sort of vague-ified function definitions ('goes like / ends up like x^2 log x'), whereas they actually make very precise statements about the limit of a ratio of two functions... |
| Your Productivity | Fri 30 Jul | Ramu Karyat |
| How much you were productive at your work place in this week ? What are the main factors affecting your productivity ? |
| Fri 30 Jul | muppet | Well for one, I was incredibly productive because I work here in the US down the hall from my project manager, and not in Banglasheep, India where I have to wait for the community payphone to be available before I can contact him. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Jon Lindbo | muppet, did your mother not hug you enough when you were a child? |
| Fri 30 Jul | old_timer | Highly variable. There were days when I got nothing of substance accomplished. There were hours when I did a week's worth of work in a frenzy. This has been the case for, oh I dunno, 38 years. Over the long haul it evens out. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Peter | >How much you were productive at your work place in this week ? Not very. >What are the main factors affecting your productivity ? Last week of the month has very little customer (maintainence) activity. First week has double the work. So, next week will be quite busy. NASD regulations give a fixed time after the end of each month that returns have to be posted, so the monthly numbers updating work can't be spread out. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Yo | every day, constantly I breathe in air and exhale CO2...pretty productive. |
| Fri 30 Jul | BW | I spent most of the week trying to understand some legacy code. Very unproductive. More evidence for my belief that functions should do more-or-less *one* thing and be properly named. </gripe> |
| Fri 30 Jul | Phibian | Not very until yesterday - I was on vacation :) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Babu Jones | I'm productive because I don't have to keep shooing my children away from playing in open rivers of raw human sewage flowing down the streets. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Kyralessa | I didn't work this week. On the other hand, I did get a job this week, which starts next week, so I guess you could say I was productive. |
| Fri 30 Jul | GenX'er | I tend to be more productive in an organized environment. Probably the worst siuation for me is when I am in the 'zone' coding then a manager comes over and interupts me. Mannagers should understand this and set up formal meetings well in advance. I can understand if there is an emergency then by all means come over - But to come over and informally talk about future projects or to get a quick status - 'How's that going? Are you done yet? - is detrimental to the project. Also, when meetings are conducted 'on the fly' - it's much harder to be 'ready for them.' Thoughts... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Rainbow | Muppet, why are you a racist? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Steamrolla | I was really productive last week, then I asked someone I work with about a part that they have for a fix that was suppose to come out in Augest. They told me that they had never commited to getting their work done by Aug, and that they wouldn't commit to any date this year. It's funny, because LAST week in our status meeting his head was bobbing up and down when I told our manager that everything was on schedule. Good thing the problem we're trying to solve only costs the company 2.5 million dollars a year, huh? Anyway now my productivity is shot because I just can't get myself to care about my piece being done on time, since its worthless by itself. |
| Fri 30 Jul | muppet | +++Muppet, why are you a racist? +++ My opinions on the state of the Indian economy and thus the quality of living in said country has absolutely NOTHING to do with the nationality of the inhabitants. How do you find my comments the least bit racist? You're the sort of Politically Correct at All Costs drone that wants to ban violent video games because they'll make kids shoot up their schools. |
| Fri 30 Jul | kc | 'Muppet, why are you a racist?' Rainbow, What is your definition of 'racist' and how does that pertain to the current discussion? Thanks. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Name Withheld | > How much you were productive at your work place in this > week? Not productive at all. (Much more productive on personal projects.) > What are the main factors affecting your productivity? Lack of financial incentive to be productive. Feeling that 'what isn't worth doing, isn't worth doing well.' No schedule. No penalties for taking a really long time. Uninvolved manager. Lack of challenge. (I work this job to have time for non-work things, not to improve my abilities.) Distraction by personal projects and interest in hacking on open source software. General laziness. |
| Fri 30 Jul | ; | Fairly. A couple of late nights and I accomplished the high priority tasks on my list. Yesterday, after working those late nights, I took it easy and only fixed a couple of minor bugs while doing more research (and yes, I include reading this forum as research). Today, I will hopefully add one of the last features necessary and then I will do some more research if time allows. All in all, it was pretty productive, and I would say that it's about average. Some days are better than others. |
| Fri 30 Jul | MT Heart | I did 200 check-ins this week... http://www.ok-cancel.com/archives/week_2004_07_30.html |
| Fri 30 Jul | Desi Inside | 'tea, coffee productivity coffee productivity coffee, tea' yea, been quite productive for the past couple of weeks cars, babes got me going day to day :) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Brian | Found out my girlfriend was pregnant... productivity went down from there. (Though I guess I did *produce* something.) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Greg Hurlman | My productivity was pretty good until *somebody* posted a link to a mildly entertaining webcomic I hadn't seen yet - damn the easily accessible archives! |
| Fri 30 Jul | senkodemayo | My manager asks me several times a week, "Whatcha working on?". If my manager doesn't know what I'm working on, it must not be that important. I've learned that its not how much work you get done that counts, its what kind of "story" you have to tell. And you always gotta have your story ready to go so you are prepared for those drop in "watcha doing" meetings. |
| Fri 30 Jul | The Wanderer | +++Genx'er +++ I agree with you completely. |
| Fri 30 Jul | The Wanderer | Greg Hurlman, What webcomic did you find? Always looking for another good one. |
| Fri 30 Jul | anon | My productivity was below (my) expectations. I blame it on pair programming. Even when paired with a likeable, competent partner, as I was last week, I still feel that I accomplish significantly less than I would on my own. Yes, I know all the arguments in favour of pair programming, but I still don't enjoy it and I still feel that I'd do the team more good if I was working 'solo'. I'd be interested to know if anyone else has had similar experiences with pairing. |
| Fri 30 Jul | anon | Re pairing, some similar discussion is here: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?PairProgrammingEconomics |
| Sat 31 Jul | James Thomas | My question is to those who say they are most productive when they are in the zone. I only get in the 'zone' when I am typing some sort of long letter/essay on the keyboard without using the moust. However, VB6 requires alot of use of mouse, so does VS.NET(i am learning all the shortcuts for vs.net), and because i have to use the mouse I can't even get in the zone. Those who can code in such so called zone, do you only use the keyboard and mostly using Cclipse where everything can be done with the keyboard? Or are you able to be in the zone while at the same time using the mouse? |
| Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | Dear muppet, You're not just a racist, you're also an idiot. Even my houseboy and tuk-tuk driver have got a mobile phone, and they can even use it to send emails and connect to the internet via GPRS if they want to. Here, in Sri Lanka, Broadband might be restricted to Colombo and the Katuyunake free trade zone, but you get dialup anywhere in the country, with wireless being used for land lines where there are no telephone cables. I doubt that the situation is much different in either India or Bangladesh. |
| Sat 31 Jul | muppet | Stephen Jones - You mean except for the garbage and sewage in the streets, right? Give me a break. India is not a first world country. It simply isn't. Now, that doesn't mean it's the fault of (most) Indians, but the fact remains that I bet it's difficult to be productive in the environment there. Again I'll state: commenting on the economic and social state of a particular country does not make me a racist. You are an idiot. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | So we should move all the American banks from New York to Frankfurt because there aren't any beggars on the streets there like New York? Your comment has nothing to do with programming; garbage and sewage in some parts of the country have no relation to the individual programmer's environment; I rather suspect most Indian programmers have an equal or better office environment than many American programmers. You probably have never been to India or anywhere near it. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Ross Sampere | muppet, keep your pride high, may be it will reach your stupidity... Re-read your comments, and, oh, yeah, sure they are so funny to you and others individials who think like you. You don't know India very much, isn't? Nor other countries outside the Big America of Wonders. What is the problem, muppet, the so called outsourcing, that make you feel nervious/angry? I don't want it for you, but if sometime you ever loose your job and things go bad and end being a tramp, on street, asking for a dollar and digging up inside bin cans, then may be you will remember that thing you said one time about the trash on streets of India, funny thought, right?. |
| Sat 31 Jul | muppet | Ross learn basic English syntax and grammar, so that I can at least understand how you're trying to insult me. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Kyralessa | muppet, Some of your comments and others' make me curious. Just what other countries _have_ you been to? And how recently? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Desi Inside | yo muppet, come on dawg ... u never been to 'other' side of downtowns(for example in ur city)?? If u never been there, just dig out some time , and go look at it .. its no different from any developing, so-called third world country. Being one of the most developed countries, US has people who live on dollar a day, so do other countries. i agree, u r not being a racist, but also, u dont make sense dude. u r a american, behave/think like one. if u take my comments constructively, good for u ... if not, its ur life, who cares |
| Sun 01 Aug | Kyralessa | Desi, reading u makes my eyeballs hurt. |
| How do people get their last job? | Fri 30 Jul | OP |
| I got inspired from another recent thread titled: How do people get their first job? So how do you know the job you have right now is the one you will keep for the rest of your working life as long as you dont get laid off that is...? I am asking this because it seems like noone is perfectly happy with what they do. Its either the boss, or the pay, or the location, or the commute, or the work itself... There are so many factors to consider and Ive never met anyone who likes everything about their jobs. The grass is always greener elsewhere. So when do you know then that you got as far as you could go, and any change will really make things worse...? p.s. This kinda reminds me of marriage as well. :) |
| Fri 30 Jul | UWM | When you find peace with yourself. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Yoey | I find this quote helps me to answer questions such as yours: 'For human nature is such that grief and pain – even simultaneously suffered – do not add up as a whole in our consciousness, but hide, the lesser behind the greater, according to a definite law of perspective. It is providential and is our means of serving in the [concentration] camp. And this is the reason why so often in free life one hears it said that man is never content. In fact it is not a question of a human incapacity for a state of absolute happiness, but of an ever-insufficient knowledge of the complex nature of the state of unhappiness; so that the single name of the major cause is given to all its causes, which are composite and set out in an order of urgency. And if the most immediate cause of stress comes to an end, we are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of other.' - From 'Survival In Auschwitz' by Primo Levi |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr.Analogy | Great quote above. And to respond to the OP: 'I am asking this because it seems like noone is perfectly happy with what they do. It's either the boss, or the pay, or the location, or the commute, or the work itself' People often blame their disatisfaction on others. It's human nature. Sure, someone may be causing you pain, but that does not necessarily cause unhapiness. I was feeling disatisfied with work then I remembered: I own the company. I had no one to blame but me. I often ask people : What makes something WORK or PLAY? I.e., what is the difference. My work CAN be play. I just need to not be fearful. Relax. Decide that fun is more important than maximum profit. In fact, fun lives in the gap between 'good enough' and 'perfection'. |
| Fri 30 Jul | old_timer | Never think you are in your job for life. There are dozens of factors that can get you to change it. I'm fairly close to retirement age and can easily ride out the next few years right where I am. But if I saw a better offer even now, I would not hesitate to jump ship. Likewise, if the company saw a better job prospect they would not hesitate for a moment to replace me. 30, even 20, years ago that wasn't the case. You joined a workforce for a long term committment. You joined a 'family'. They too intended to keep you for your entire career. But that's not the way it is now. You're simply a hired hand and everyone is temporary. GE's former CEO Jack Welch once said. 'You got paid last Friday, we're even.' The worst aspect of thinking you're a 'lifer' is you get intellectually lazy. Yout skills stagnate. Your motivation wanes. You become a drone. |
| Fri 30 Jul | John C. | >>the one you will keep for the rest of your working life as long as you don't get laid off that is It has never even occurred to me that any job I had might be a job I would keep for the rest of my working life. Frankly, I find the notion absurd (unless you're 64 years old and just counting down to retirement). That has nothing to do with being happy in a job; I've been fortunate to have a number of times in my life where I've been about as satisfied as I could hope to be. I read something recently that stuck in my head. Tom Peters wrote this, I think when he was trying to come up with a 10-second explanation of his goal in life. It was: Do cool shit. Every single day. Or die trying. I think that pretty accurately captures my fundamental philosophy too. I'm basically happy if I'm doing cool stuff and making a decent living (and have time for friends and family and all those sort of things). But if somewhere else popped up where I could do even cooler stuff, I'd go for it. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Clay Dowling | 'I am asking this because it seems like noone is perfectly happy with what they do.' To quote my evangelical Christian former boss, 'That's why they call it 'work' and not 'blowjob'.' Nothing's perfect. Even that job, where I was on a beautiful campus with a huge library that had more books that I wanted to read than I could hope to get through in a lifetime and gorgeous coeds walking all over the place and the best darned ice cream parlor I've ever been in. |
| Sat 31 Jul | hoser | John C., mah man. 'Do cool shit. Every single day. Or die trying.' Abso-F'ing-lootely. I had this philosophy reaffirmed in my last search. Fortunately, I was able to change employers like changing a shirt - although it felt much harder while you're in the mix. If you aren't on the edge, you're going to get dumped. Simple as that. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Daniel Howard | I think that we've been sold a bill of goods about the ability of jobs to teach and help us grow. For people fresh out of school, there are a few years of learning from others to take place; a job makes sense. But, if you have 5 or more years of experience, it is time to start thinking about starting your own company. Or, it is time to start putting your efforts into something else, like a family, a hobby or a new career. Jobs have some things to teach us but they are not infinite learning grounds. At some point, you've seen the majority of the good ideas, figured out how to program the kinds of things that you think are worth programming and it's time to move onto challenges in other areas. Lifetime learning doesn't necessarily mean studying the exact same subject for your whole life (like programming). Lifetime learning eventually means knowing when you've gained an acceptable proficiency and moving onto other challenges. |
| Sun 01 Aug | T. Norman | How do you get your last job? You retire. Until that happens, you can't know if your current job will be your last or what the real last one will be. |
| For those who think Indians stole American jobs! | Thu 29 Jul | Naresh Srinivasan |
| I know many of you, who come to this so called Software forum talks a hell lot about H1-B visas/ outsourcing. I came across a book called Debugging Indian computer programmers with a subtitle Dude, did I steal your job? Being an Indian living in India, I hated it as much as I loved it due to the authors bias towards America. I would like to know if any Indian American or American programmers read the book. I am kind of disturbed with the authors comments. Naresh |
| Thu 29 Jul | Bicuspix | I thought we stole the Indians land? |
| Thu 29 Jul | stan | Dey took yer job! |
| Thu 29 Jul | BrooklynBoy | I just saw the desc on Amazon. Looks like it's more serious and Indian bias than American. Book Description The backlash against outsourcing American jobs to countries like India had transformed into an anti-immigrant and anti-Indian atmosphere lately. While looking at outsourcing and high-tech visa programs from a completely different angle --and giving an enjoyable account of Indian programmers -- this book answers, in an extremely balanced way, the following complicated questions that have been raised by many American programmers and politicians: . If outsourcing is inevitable, what’s next for Americans? · Did America really benefit from immigrant programmers? · Was there never a need to bring immigrant programmers to the U.S.? · Are Indian immigrant programmers nothing but corporate lapdogs? · Are Indian programmers dumb as rocks and incapable of thinking outside of the box? · Did Indian immigrant programmers support the September 11th attacks? · Did Americans invent everything that belongs to the computer industry? · Is the Indian education system far below world standards? · Is there an organized Indian mafia in American universities that hires only Indian cronies? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Ankur | Indians did steal American jobs. Get over it the fact that you don't like the connotation of the word 'steal'. But that's capitalism. American programmers just want more money than they're worth on a global labor market. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Naresh Srinivasan | You are right. That was my initial impression: But the book claims American programmers are superior than Indians and Chinese. The author claims Americans have more business sense so they are capable of producing better software - which I completly disagree. |
| Thu 29 Jul | An Indian in America | > In an extremely balanced way I doubt that. . If outsourcing is inevitable, what’s next for Americans? Powerty and hopelessness, with the occasional brief joy from driving around in our pickup trucks with baseball bats looking for them damn foreigners that stole our jobs and wimmin. · Did America really benefit from immigrant programmers? No. · Was there never a need to bring immigrant programmers to the U.S.? Never. · Are Indian immigrant programmers nothing but corporate lapdogs? Yes, absolutely. · Are Indian programmers dumb as rocks and incapable of thinking outside of the box? That's what I've observed but surely there are two or three exceptions. · Did Indian immigrant programmers support the September 11th attacks? Not all of them did. · Did Americans invent everything that belongs to the computer industry? No, we did not invent solder. · Is the Indian education system far below world standards? Not below world averages at all - their 50% literacy rate beats most of africa and china. Below standards of the industrialized world? Absolutely . · Is there an organized Indian mafia in American universities that hires only Indian cronies? Yes, this is certainly true. I have personally seen it and benefited from it too. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Corporate Lapdog | 'American programmers just want more money than they're worth on a global labor market.' The cool thing about hat is that now that we are making wages the same as those 3rd world countries, we don't have the money to import food or crafts from overseas. As long as the indian economy dosen't rely on exporting low cost goods or food to the west and can provide jobs for all their low skilled people, they won't have any massive social unrest due to riots and terrorist activity from desperate hungry people. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Rah rah India | 'The author claims Americans have more business sense so they are capable of producing better software - which I completly disagree. ' Yes his is certainly false. Most all of the innovative software that sells like flapjacks has come from India and China. |
| Thu 29 Jul | I don't know...why people often do this? | Naresh: You are an Indian living in India, right!? The book migh be intended for Americans for their own consumption.So what was the need of putting it on the 'Forum'. What really were you expecting....a productive discussion! |
| Thu 29 Jul | kc | Doesn't anyone think it's silly to simultaneously keep the H1-B Visa program *and* complain about unemployment in the tech sector *and* complain about stagnant wages? It's simple supply and demand. If the supply is increased and the demand stays the same, then price goes down. It gets even worse if the demand goes down too. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Vikram S. Gupta | C'mon guys, things are looking up. Heck, just today I called GEICO and saved a lot of money on my car insurance! |
| Thu 29 Jul | Naresh Srinivasan | Then why do American publishers sell these books in India? I just wanted to know what you guys think about the book. The author claims he is balanced - and he is to an extent. But at the end, he compares Indian programmers to Americans and concludes that AMericans are better programmers who could think much better than Indians - outside of the box. Which I don't agree. The reason for me posting it here to have a contructive discussion. I was little disturbed and wanted to have a good discussion with someone who is open in his/her views. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Rob VH | I think you ought to have a discussion with an American who works with lots of Indian programmers. I have only worked with one, and she was rotten. But I'm not going to make my mind up about outsourcing or the quality of programmers from India based on a sample with a population of 1. We're all in such a rush to solve this 'Mystery of the Universe'. Time will tell if outsourcing works. If, in 5 years time, American companies have stopped outsourcing work to India, I guess we'll know that it doesn't really work. Contrariwise likewise. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Anyway let me change this :-) | Naresh: I am also an Indian living in India. Part, you don't agree----- 'But at the end, he compares Indian programmers to Americans and concludes that AMericans are better programmers who could think much better than Indians - outside of the box.' If you are living in India ,then you can very well figure out .That our present education system, never takes the creativity and imagination of a person into consideration. We are asked to cram things from childhood till graduation and then reproduce it during examination. I am not really in the position to comment, whether Americans are better programmers or Indians. But certainly I see many flaws in our education system which may effect the way we think. And even you can never figure this out here, on this forum! It would rather turn out into many of the threads where people will abuse or insult other's. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Code Monkey | >That our present education system, never takes the creativity and imagination of a person into consideration. Hah that is funny...everyone always thinks that their country's public education system sucks. I hear the same thing from Americans and even from the Japanese and somehow that has never been an impediment in the development of their country. The basic fact is that once people have their basic needs taken care of -- literacy, food and living people they feel free to explore their more creative sides and inexorably that is what will happen to India and China...as it happened to Japan, South Korea. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Oh! I changed this again... | Code Monkey: 'The basic fact is that once people have their basic needs taken care of -- literacy, food and living people they feel free to explore their more creative sides' In general, if you say, then it's true. But here, Naresh was talking about ' Programmers'. Who are having decent education and comparable to other's enjoy a high standard of living. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | 'We are asked to cram things from childhood till graduation and then reproduce it during examination.' Yes, US schools are like this also. Code Monkey is right though and the rebuttal doesn't address the issue. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Code Monkey | >But here, Naresh was talking about ' Programmers'. Who are having decent education and comparable to other's enjoy a high standard of living. Programming is a creative job...even if it is writing batch files :-) The fact is that the notion that creativity is suppressed by public education is not true. Most people in a rut whether in their jobs or in life blame it on the education -- or rather the lack of education -- they had. You have to learn the basics and sometimes you have to pay your dues by doing it by rote because unless you do so how do you ever know what you are good at and what you are bad at? For a Japanese student learning the approx 1800 Kanji necessary to read a japanese newspaper is the doorway to future creativity not a barrier to it. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dino | Programmers are all the same, no matter where they're coming from. Some are good, some are not so good. What makes a problem when outsourcing is the cultural barrier: an Indian living in India will undestand of the American culture as much as an American would understand the Indian culture. Thinking outside the box in the wrong cultural context is rather difficult if not impossible. Nothing personal. To make outsourcing work teams need a liason who understands perfectly both cultures. He needs to translate everything between the 2 worlds or chances are the outsourced project won't deliver (to be more exact the total costs of development & operation will exceed many times the expected figures). Good specs? That may help! |
| Thu 29 Jul | James Thomas | If we made a small manual to sell to wannabe code monkeys outside of USA, we would be rich. The manual would cover all the stuff, know how, how to do just enough to be considered as a better than US based code monkey. 1$ from 10 million people can be some considerable cash. I don't work for a big corporation, so I would have no credibility as an author, but those who do, could start with. "I work at such and such Fortune 500 corporatio and I am considered as an adequate programmer. Here is what I do...." |
| Thu 29 Jul | Philo | Is there a name for the phenomenon where one subconsciously reinforces stereotypes? For example - you have an Indian who writes crappy code, so you subconsciously add a point to the 'Indians can't write good code' column. But when you have an American who writes crappy code, they're just a crappy coder. In other words, we only note the data points that reinforce the beliefs we hold. Data points that dispute them (no matter how many) are set aside as anomalies, and data points that suggest the stereotype isn't just based on the race/sex/nationality we think it is isn't considered a data point. Does that make sense? Philo |
| Thu 29 Jul | Tayssir John Gabbour | Boy, that would be an important term. (For describing that heightened sensitivity for judging a group based on the actions of some members.) Hypocrisy comes close, but probably doesn't capture the gradual spirit. Been happening a lot. There needs to be a neat term to tie it all up. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Christopher Wells | > Is there a name for the phenomenon where one subconsciously reinforces stereotypes? Perhaps it's a 'bias', for example as used in the following definition: 'Double-Blind Trial, Double-blind clinical study . A study in which none of the participants, including the experimental subjects, examining doctors, attending nurses, or any other research staff, know who is taking the test drug and who is taking a control (or placebo) agent. The purpose of such a research design is to avoid any inadvertent BIAS of the test results. In all such studies, procedures exist to 'break the blind' if circumstances require it.' |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Atkins | So Chris, for these cases with a placebo vs an active drug, would these active drugs be ones that have occasional side effects? And if so, wouldn't that break the blind? So wouldn't you have to say that in any clinical trial with drugs that have any side-effects whatsoever, a double-blind study is technically not possible? that is unless you spike the placebo to create side effects, right? But that is not done now is it? |
| Fri 30 Jul | redguardtoo | For good programmers , there are always jobs. for bad programmers , he (or she ) has always reasons to explain why he (or she ) lose. Now comes to outsourcing and all the sort of quarrels about it . I can tell for sure (because I am a Chinese programmer, now in China). Good programmers in China will never touch those foolish-java-kind-mis-erp-outsourcing-sh*t. In China, good programmers (like programmers in other countries) know the only valuable thing in this Business is to invent , to develop our own software for our people, then for the people around the world. foolish projects, foolish people in America are also regarded foolish in China, in India, in any country. |
| Fri 30 Jul | I am not gonna change this, anymore! | Code Monkey: Does culture plays a role in it? Culture contributes a lot!Isn't it? Like the way a person thinks, whether he/she is innovator or risk taking... What do you think? redguardtoo: 'In China, good programmers (like programmers in other countries) know the only valuable thing in this Business is to invent , to develop our own software for our people, then for the people around the world.' Sorry, If I am harsh. But reality is this is not at all the case with India. Most of our good programmers are always having one eye on US. The dream destination. Good! One should grow and learn as much as possible. But the thing I hate is, when these people criticise India one way or the other. I tell you how, I have read few articles written by NRI ( Non -Resident Indians), Indian American, ex-IITians from Silicon Valley literally criticising and abusing another ex-IITian ' Narayan Murthy' ( The founder of Infosys) for lack of good R&D programme, why has he send his son to US University blah....blah. I am having personally great respect for Narayan Murthy for his positive contribution towards India. These NRI ( Not all) would never encourage and help people here, although they completed their engineering degree on our hard earned money. I have nothing against them personally, what I don't really like about them is 'if you can't help or encourage us, then atleast don't discourage us' |
| Fri 30 Jul | Christopher Wells | > So Chris, for these cases with a placebo vs an active drug, would these active drugs be ones that have occasional side effects? Probably, Dennis: drugs tend to. > And if so, wouldn't that break the blind? My uninformed opinion would be that: - Take the antipsychotic drugs, for example: they all have similar side-effects (e.g. dry mouth, weight gain, ...); so you could be a subject in a trial without knowing *which* of the drugs you are being given. - If some side-effect is known to be an obvious give-away (e.g. one causes hair loss where a placebo doesn't) you might design the trial accordingly (e.g. subjects wear hair-nets while being interviewed) to at least keep the clinicians blind. > So wouldn't you have to say that in any clinical trial with drugs that have any side-effects whatsoever, a double-blind study is technically not possible? that is unless you spike the placebo to create side effects, right? But that is not done now is it? The presence of side-effects is likely one of the things that the trial is attempting to ascertain. You may be right (I have no experience with this subject). I've just woken up from dreaming, and I think that subjectivity and objectivity are both illusory. |
| Fri 30 Jul | AmericanTechDude | Naresh, You wanted an open opinion, right?. I read the book. Here are my thoughts: The Author is an Indian American. Overall I liked the book due to the great flow and humour. It's definitely a page turner. But I have few disagreements with the author. The author defends the contributions of Indian ( and immigrant IT workers) to the American economy with some very solid points, which I am defintly not familiar with. He bashes anit-Indian activists who flood the message boards. I think his statements were very harsh. He makes fun of Indian programmers ( the curry factor etc). And finally he gives a great comparison of American, Indian and Chinese programmers. I liked that particular chapter. It's well analysed and written. The outsourcing chapter has these phrases which I liked a lot. 'A country is made up of people, not buildings and corporations. If the people of a country are suffering, then isn't the whole country suffering?' And he claims the American companies have taken a overnight outsourcing strategy and dumped the American workforce. In summary. I liked the book. I don't know how well a hard-core Indian programmer will take it. I also think many American programmers who have developed ill feelings towards Indians ( specailly H1-Bs) will not like the book. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Jack | I don't think anybody can make a clear cut conclusion as far as who is better programmer. Here are a few thoughts. Most of the best programmers are in US or Europe because real good programmers do it for the love it. Indian or Chinese programmers do it for money and for career. In the hight of outsource, for example, Oracle announced to hire 5000+ in India. IBM, Accenture,...., too. The fact is that the best India programmers are in USA already. What's left is ok, but to fill such a big demand, lousy ones get in. I have a co-worker left a medicore job in US and got a senior partner position in Deloitte & Touche India. I like him, but in US he got no chance. In short I have doubts on the qualities of outsourcing work. Hey, you get what you paid for. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Code Monkey | >Does culture plays a role in it? Culture contributes a lot!Isn't it? Like the way a person thinks, whether he/she is innovator or risk taking... Culture ofcourse plays a role but not as much as people think. Innovaters are called that precisely because they are able to make break from the confines of their culture. In Japan you have Masayoshi Son, in India Narayan Murthy, in Britain Richard Branson and Clive Sinclair. Every culture has these, it is just that they need a chance to flower and that does not happen unless one has a stable country with the basic human needs taken care of. There was this article sometime back which said that more students are graduating in Park management rather than technology...does that mean that America is about to lose its technology base...hardly so. Outsourcing is a fact of nature. I asked a friend of mine who always rails against it..why he buys stuff from Amazon when he can buy the same stuff from his local Mom and Pop store which is going out of business and he says that he does because Amazon is cheaper and has better service (package lands at his house) fine then by the same criterion should not oursourcing also be acceptable? Do the ethics change suddenly when you cross from America into Mexico? Why is it OK for Bechtel to move jobs from San Francisco to Mayland but not to India? I know most people say that people in Maryland still pay US taxes but then corporate profits are lower and corporate taxes are smaller too. I think Kerry has it right in that we should give companies who want to create and maintain jobs inside America an incentive to do so rather than just bitching and moaning about what they are doing. |
| Fri 30 Jul | I, sir, am not one of them | >> Indian or Chinese programmers do it for money and for career. >> But reality is this is not at all the case with India. Most of our good programmers are always having one eye on US. The dream destination. Much to my chagrin, the above are, to a certain extent true. But a growing number in the 25-35 range are proving to be a pain in the proverbial of our folks for not wanting to do that. We are in it for the love of it AND the wages. And we are in it in India. |
| Fri 30 Jul | I am not gonna change this, anymore! | Thank You, Code Monkey I have never been to US or for that matter to any other country. So I thought that it has something to do with our education system or culture that we lack so far behind. For India it's a long and difficult road ahead....Real disturbing scenario! Thanks again! Jack: 'Indian or Chinese programmers do it for money and for career.' Yes, it is correct. But so do some American programmers. On the contrary some Indian or Chinese programmers can do the programming, for love of it. Jack, it seems you are an Indian-American. Sorry, if I am wrong. But, You people are good for nothing....just move on with your life. |
| Fri 30 Jul | I am not gonna change this, anymore! | Sorry, not for all Indian-American, but for people like Jack...if ofcourse he is! |
| Fri 30 Jul | Jack | I am born Chinese, live in USA. I am good for nothing. You are pretty harsh. Take it easy, man. |
| Fri 30 Jul | I am not gonna change this, anymore! | Sorry Jack!!!! That comment was not intended for you. At All !!!! I am not at all criticising them because they are working and living in US. Fair enough! Grow and learn as much as possible. Widen your horizon! It's your life! I wrote that comment because I have come across many Indians-Americans who don't take a second to judge there counterparts in India. Often their comments and articles are discouraging and full of criticism for Indian IT industry just because they happen to work in US in the same field. I mean why do they have to criticise any constructive and positive change here, in India, where they took birth and did all their formal education that too on tax payer money (IIT). This was my point! Don't take it personally Jack! The comment was not intended for you. |
| Fri 30 Jul | AmericanTechDude | Boy! the thread is losing track. Coming back to some of the discussions about the book ( and Naresh where are you? sleeping in India?) The chapter on Programmer comparison, claims that Average Indian programmers do not have the passion for the job, and most of them got into IT solely for money. But it also claims that Indian programmers are hard workers than Americans - which I disagree to an extent. The author also claims that Indian programmers are the ones who did all the 'code walking' and code maintenance projects ( he calls them shit work) which no one wanted to do. hence he appreciates the Indian programmers- I agree. |
| Sat 31 Jul | p/p Prof K C Williams | · Did Americans invent everything that belongs to the computer industry? No, we did not invent solder. Nor did you invent the computer - the first computer was built by Prof Williams at Manchester University in England in 1946. |
| Sat 31 Jul | redguardtoo | MAYBE the books just give the points which will sell (at least the author believe it sell) in America. I cannot believe that most india programmers are the people as the book described (from your cited text) when considering the country had Gandhi (like American had Lincon). Before I began to read good books about Americans, I also believed that Americans are very open in sex, they are rich, they do not care about religion (from American movies and TV serials). before I went to Japan, I also believed that Japanese always work overtime, Japanese are serious in soft-engineering. I also believed every American C programmer , or European C programmer knows what is ASSERT and asserts everthing . ... |
| Sun 01 Aug | Don Quiote | They have stolen the jobs BUT with the HELP OF OUR OWN CORPORATIONS AND CITIZENS. Get it? Lets get down to the bottom line as they say. The ONLY REASON that Indian programmers are hired is they are CHEAP. As they say in the hood, its about the bling-bling. Its not that they are smarter, faster or better educated. Its that they are cheap. Companies want to increase their profit margin and lower their costs. When all other things are constant labor is the one thing where you can enact arbitrage and force salaries down. Unlike for example the price of oil. When you can hire someone for 1/10 the salary of someone in the US and get the same work done guess whats going to happen? Particularly when there is a pro-business pro-globalization bent now. Its not about you, me or the Indians. Its about the executives in the companies and the never ending desire to make more money. Here is a tip: once Indian salaries rise to a level where they the executives no longer feel they are getting the lowest possible cost they will just move those jobs somewhere else to say Vietnam or Africa. We are being exploited by the man. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Jonny Boy | All I remember was the damn indians in my college courses all cheated... :-( ... maybe the author was right ? |
| Unicode | Thu 29 Jul | Maxime Labelle |
| Hi, I have been recently learning about Unicode and read various articles on the topic (including an article from Joel). I would like some clarifications on the use of the various encoding schemes on windows. I have made some small tests and seem to conclude that: 1. UTF-32 is not supported on Windows. 2. UTF-16 is what _UNICODE refers to in the Win32 API. 3. UTF-16 doesnt work at all on HTML files. 4. UTF-8 works well on HTML files for 1-byte, 2-bytes and 3-bytes long character sequences, but not for 4-bytes long character sequences (need some extra fonts?) 5. UTF-8 doesnt work with the Win32 API (_mbsinc(), CharNextExA(), etc.) apart from conversion using WideCharToMultiByte with the CP_UTF8 code page. My questions are: How well is UTF-16 supported on Windows? Does it support 4-bytes long character sequences? Isnt UTF-8 really supported on Win32? What is a multi-byte character string exactly? Cheers. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Ankur | 1) UTF-32 is not widely supported at all, requiring 4 byte characters. UTF-16 is probably the best compromise right now unless you really need alot of characters not in the base plane. 2) UCS-2 is _UNICODE. It is subtely different than UTF-16 as UCS-2 does not let you get out of the base plane. 3) HTML files are 8 bits, so no, UTF-16 doesn't work on HTML. 4) UTF-8 support for 4-6 byte characters works just fine. If you don't have the fonts to represent the characters, that's not HTML's fault. 5) Don't use ANSI Win32 string functions for UTF-8. First convert back to wide characters before doing string manipulation. Windows natively supports UCS-2, but .Net goes whole hog UTF-8. In .Net, 4 byte character sequences are only supported by reading the string as a byte array and using the System.Text functions to convert to 2 byte character sequences for UTF-16. Multi-byte is not UTF-8. UTF-8 is a particular way of representing all the Unicode characters using anywhere from 1 to 6 bytes. Multi-byte is a different particular way of representing characters using 1 or 2 bytes, and does not cover all of Unicode. UTF-8 is not 'natively' supported in Windows. It's just a way to interchange documents with systems that only support 8 bit characters (like HTML). |
| Thu 29 Jul | Almost Anonymous | UNICODE in Win32 isn't not UTF-16 it's UCS-2. UCS-2 is always 2 bytes per code point and you cannot encode characters beyond the Basic Multilingual Plane (BMP). In the early days, 2 bytes was enough precision to encode all the code points which is why Windows uses it. However, when it was determined that 2 bytes did not provide enough values for all possible code points, UTF-16 and UTF-8 where created (along with UCS-4 which uses 4 bytes per code point). It should be noted that this was done AFTER unicode support was added to the Windows API. So to answer your questions: 'How well is UTF-16 supported on Windows?' Not at all. It supports UCS-2. 'Does it support 4-bytes long character sequences?' Doubtful based on the above. 'Isn't UTF-8 really supported on Win32?' Nope. UTF-8 is rarely used internally by any software or operating system. It's generally converted to UCS-2 and used that way. 'What is a multi-byte character string exactly?' In Windows, it's UCS-2 string. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Chris Tavares | Actually, a multi-byte character string in Windows is NOT a UCS-2 string. That's what's called 'wide character string.' Multibyte character strings use encodings like SHIFT-JIS or UTF-8, where a single 'character' can be represented by a variable number of bytes, and you can't do random access to a particular character, but must instead traverse character by character from the beginning. With a UCS-2 string, every character is exactly 2 bytes, so random access is possible. In general, on NT class OS's, you work with UCS-2 strings; on Win9x, you're stuck with multibyte and whatever the current code page is. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Almost Anonymous | 'Actually, a multi-byte character string in Windows is NOT a UCS-2 string. That's what's called 'wide character string.'' Oh yes.. I got multi-byte and wide character mixed up. I actually used to do multi-byte work (translating English to Chinese in a VB application) on Windows 98. Sooo ugly. ;) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Maxime Labelle | Ah, ah ! Thanks a lot. That is much clearer now. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Olivier | How about Java. I know that a Char inJava is 2 bytes length. Is it UCS-2, UTF16 or something ? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Pakter | Java supports the Unicode 3.0 character set (that is, in the BMP : the characters fitting in \uxxxx'). I suppose that the internal encoding method is implementation-specific (well, let's suppose that they just use two bytes. I think we can call it UCS-2 -- this is not UTF-16, because UTF-16 includes characters outside the BMP). This should change is Java 1.5. In case you're interested, read http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Intl/Supplementary/ |
| Sun 01 Aug | Nick Lamb | 'Nope. UTF-8 is rarely used internally by any software or operating system. It's generally converted to UCS-2 and used that way.' Quite the reverse, what you've described really holds true only on one platform from one manufacturer. UTF-8 is the recommended encoding for all Unix systems, and is the de jure standard (or 'recommendation') for most W3C languages and protocols and IETF protocols. It's also the de facto standard pretty much everywhere else, except on Windows (on BeOS for example it's hardly mentioned, but actually all the APIs are UTF-8 only) Popular implementations like the GNU i18n and l10n libraries use UTF-8 almost throughout, with just a few places converting to UCS-4. The recommendation from i18n and Unicode experts on Linux systems especially is to stay with UTF-8 throughout your program. It would be pointless to convert to UCS-2 since that's obsolete and now found more or less exclusively on legacy Windows systems. There are several cute features of UTF-8 which make it much easier and faster to code for than UTF-16, and of course it's much more compact than UCS-4. For example counting the number of characters in a nul-terminated UTF-8 string just requires a modification to the comparison (a check for 11xxxxxxb) compared to a similar count in ASCII. UTF-8 also doesn't need crazy 1960's-style begin-document markers because it's endian-neutral. An earlier poster pointed out the decision to use UCS-2 in Windows predates the use of Plane 1 and so all the APIs changed for it by Microsoft are now obsolete and will eventually need a further redesign. It would be sensible to choose UTF-8 for this redesign, but politically it's probably going to have to be UTF-16 despite its shortcomings. |
| $75K-$100K/year to McDonald's Not Possible? | Tue 27 Jul | Michael Ealem |
| I have a question for the group - you often see the flippant reply here and other places to posters worried about their jobs or whatnot of get used to saying Do you want fries with that? Has anyone *actually* made that transition? After I got laid off over two years ago from a senior developer position at the last in a series of dot-bombs, I applied to bookstores, grocery stores, Home Depot, etc. - in short, almost everything except McDonalds or Burger King. I never once received a callback for an interview, and the one time I could get a hiring manager to talk to me, he said, Are you insane? You made more money last year than I make in 3-4 years! Why should I hire you? Youll just be gone in two weeks when the job market recovers. True, but the market never did.... So, has anyone ever done this, and how did you go about convincing them to hire you? |
| Tue 27 Jul | Mr. O | I think it's better to be unemployed and search for jobs full-time over six months, than to be marginally-employed and search part-time, which has a risk of being hardly at all. |
| Tue 27 Jul | The tail of the "g" in "fog creek software" | Mr. O: But after what a lot of us put up with in our in-career jobs, I have to imagine an (ostensibly) low-stress job seems very tempting; something where you may or may not be swamped at work, but when you clock out you *know* no one's going to be calling your cell with some sort of pseudoemergency-that-only-you-can-handle. A lot of people don't really mind being stressed at work; it's the stress about work at home that gets to them. In other words, for those who are young enough that they don't have to ulcer over their finances, there's definitely an argument to be made for it. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Aussie Chick | McDonalds is a fun place to work. Pay is crap, uniforms are too tight, but so much fun. |
| Tue 27 Jul | trollop | << but when you clock out you *know* no one's going to be calling your cell with some sort of pseudoemergency-that-only-you-can-handle >>
oh yeh? |
| Tue 27 Jul | Chris | Aussie Chick, Only the female uniforms, and from what I have seen only at stores with male managers. Of course I am not reading anything into that apart from standard company policy... |
| Tue 27 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Bookstores are really fun to work at (especially those super sized ones). You never get any time to read though, and it is a lot of work. It's fun talking with all kinds of people. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Michael Ealem | Uh, nobody's answered the question, 'How did you convince them to hire you?' My contention is that going from a high-paying technical job like EE or programming to McDonald's or Walmart or digging ditches doesn't happen - they won't hire you in the first place! Now, does anyone have counterexamples where you went from a high-5 or 6-figure income to minimum-wage? And what age were you when this occurred? And what did you say to convince them to hire you? (This entire question came out of an argument with friends whose answer to my money troubles was, 'Get a job! Go work at Walmart - they're always hiring!' Riiiiiight.) |
| Tue 27 Jul | Stephen Jones | Just don't tell them about the other jobs. Read 'NIckel and Dimed' by Barbara Ehrenreich http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0805063897/002-9253567-3571243?v=glance She didn't have any difficulty getting a job at Walmart. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Michael Ealem | I've read 'Nickel and Dimed' - a good book, worthy of discussion elsewhere and elsewhen. But the author was essentially working 'undercover,' and in no real danger of actually being homeless and destitute. >don't tell them But I have this nasty habit of telling the truth when someone asks me what my past jobs were, and they tend to get bent if I decline to say. But again, my question is still unanswered. |
| Tue 27 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Nickel & Dimed is a good book & I recommend it to everyone. Especially *before* you lose your high paying job. One of the great points, to me, was that even though she was college educated and an author for... I forget the magazine, but a well respected one, nobody ever felt she was 'too smart' to be working at Wal Mart, or as a maid in a hotel, or any of the other jobs she got. There was also that famous article of the CEO of a dotcom that ended up as manager of Gap somewhere. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Mr.Fancypants | If you're such a stickler for the truth, that's probably why you haven't found another good job in the past 2 years. Everyone that you're competing with, including myself, is lying. Sap! |
| Tue 27 Jul | T. Norman | The stupid thing about not hiring an 'overqualified' person for a low-paying job is that those jobs have such high turnover anyway. How often do you see the same person last in a retail or fast-food store for more than 6 months? Next time they say you're going to leave quickly because of your qualifications, challenge them on their turnover of less educated/less experienced workers. |
| Tue 27 Jul | T. Norman | But you will have to go there to apply in person and ask to speak directly to a manager. You won't be able to challenge their preconceptions by sending in a resume or paper application. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Fred | Your experience just confirms that unemployment is not necessarily a consequence of people overpricing themselves. Like that manager told you, they know that you'll flee at the first opportunity, so they'd rather hire someone who has less opportunities that you do, and cut down on the amount of time spend interviewing people. |
| Tue 27 Jul | www.xndev.com (Matt H.) | I would recommend a weekend job that people do for extra cash or a job where niche experience is appreciated, even if not compensated. That leaves: 1) Be the 'Computer Book Guy' at a big bookstore like Barnes and Nobles, or 2) Weekend Pizza Delivery Driver. You can make $10-$15 per hour (including tips) as a pizza delivery driver. The hours are bad: Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights when most people are out going to parties. They are also hours you can continue to work if you got a day job. Don't tell your new boss how much you made previously, and talk about how you just want to make some extra $$ to help pay the bills. After a few weeks, ask to go go full time. :-) I'm not sure about the full time bit, but I've seen people pull off everything before it. Another good bet is to try gas stations, do _not_ include a resume, and be purposefully vague on the application. Don't lie, just be vague. I haven't had to make those choices personally, but I did work a lot of $5-8/hr jobs in college. A few more thoughts: 1) Try manpower when they are looking for an 'MS Access' specialist. These are short-term gigs that pay like $12-$15/hr for a week or four. Usually writing queries. The company can't find anyone to fill those slots (they don't specialize in technology), so they find you, and all of a sudden you can do all the work that couldn't fill before. Pretty soon you are either at the top of thier list, or, better yet, hired in somewhere at a better pay scale. :-) 2) Try 'freelancer' type sites like elance.com. Start building a portfolio. 3) I hope this isn't a troll. :-) Good luck, |
| Tue 27 Jul | muppet | when I was laid off for six months last year, I cashed out my 401k and pension from my previous employer in order to avoid working part time. It's MUCH more important to devote all your time to finding a job in your own domain where you can be compensated to the degree to which you are accustomed. If you are absolutely on your last dime, look into unemployment compensation. After that, worry about getting hired at McDonald's. I was able to find a higher paying job than the one I was let go from after 6 months of not working, after quite a frustrating parade of dead-end interviews and go-nowhere conversations with useless headhunters. |
| Tue 27 Jul | RocketJeff | >>If you are absolutely on your last dime, look into unemployment compensation. What do you mean by this? This is the _first_ thing that you should do if you're eligible. Cashing in 401k's should be your last option (since you now owe tax on the money as well as paying a hefty penalty). |
| Tue 27 Jul | tapiwa | In response to the OP 1. Don't tell them how much you earned 2. Work through agencies In the UK, there are a number of these warm body agencies. The clients will call them and say that they need 10 warm bodies for the agency to supply that day. You get to be one of them. Some will try and keep the same people serving the same clients, but you get the picture... just good for people between jobs etc. I know folk that have registered with them in the morning, and received calls in the afternoon to start working. Shit money, but possibly still better than McDonalds (who needs a pension plan when you are in it for a couple of months), AND no interview process. A lot of them will just ask for ID and make you fill out a form. No CV required. The work is normally pretty bad! Packing CDs. Packing orders at Amazon. Packing airline food. Garbage collection. Counting traffic. Etc etc. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Peter | >How did you convince them to hire you? I wasn't able to. In 2003-2004, I spent a total of 12 months unemployed. Only walmart even called me back, but I think they didn't like the answers on the honesty test they make everyone fill out. The questions all seemed to ask the same 2 questions: do you steal (no), what do you do when your manager steals (turn the rat in). They must have asked those 2 questions about 50 different ways on the multiple guess test. The impression I got from those questions is that they want managers to go home with a full trunk of loot every night, and the grunts to be totally honest. It was pathetic that even places with 'help wanted' signs did not even interview me when I applied. Change your oil? Tires? |
| Tue 27 Jul | muppet | RocketJeff - in my particular case, I had a major attack of pride and decided that unemployment compensation would be my last resort. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Michael Ealem | > unemployment compensation Exhausted as of January this year. I'm selling off my library (including my programming books, most of which are on Safari now) and old family stuff on eBay, and teaching Argentine tango, all of which brings in considerably less than minimum wage. So far, nobody on the board has said they've actually done it, although some interesting suggestions as to how it might be done. So it looks like the next time somebody throws out the 'do you want fries with that' line, I get to call bovine fecal matter. |
| Tue 27 Jul | muppet | It seems as though you need to change strategies in your job hunting, although clearly it's late in the game for you. Why are you resigned to working retail or worse? Maybe you're too severely limiting the 'tech' jobs that you feel you can apply for. I shotgunned my resume all over the damned place when I was out of work. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Anonx | I don’t think that you will find somebody who has done what you are looking for. Those jobs just seem to be the LCD term when looking employment. The two terms commonly used are being burger flippers and working at home depot. I have also heard the expression 'I can always dig ditches'. That is all great considering if someone is hiring for those positions. If it makes you feel any better I think there was a story of a high paid white collar worker who could only find work as a handyman. I think he was in FL and it was on one of the evening news broadcasts. Lou Dobbs does a good job of covering the misery for American Workers. If you watch him enough you are bound to find what you are looking for |
| Tue 27 Jul | almost anon | If you're not smart enough to figure out how to get hired by McDonalds... how in the world did you reach a salary of 75-100k? Seriously, I don't get it. |
| Tue 27 Jul | muppet | I think it's a troll, plain and simple. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Christopher Diggins | I don't think the guy is a troll. Being a technical genius doesn't mean you have good skills for interfacing with the common world, in fact often it is a detriment. I mean the guy couldn't figure out how to write an effective resume for applying for work in a blue collar job. How many of the university professors have we had in computer science and math who would be able to feed themselves if they got fired. Surpisingly few in my case. |
| Tue 27 Jul | matt | Hmm... just tell them you've been travelling around working a bunch of bar jobs for the past 5 years or whatever. Scruff yourself up a bit, but not too much. I dunno. It's gonna have to involve lying at some stage. |
| Tue 27 Jul | - former car owner in Queens | I second the poster who recommended temp agencies. Personal experience: right after I got out of the USAF, my ex-wife (who has a Ph.D.) and I needed to bring in some cash while we were resettling in this country after several years abroad. We contacted a few agencies picked at random from the newspaper and we both were sent out on assignments immediately (in my case, I went to the agency in the morning and was on a job that afternoon). Now, as has been said, it was crap work (I think that first assignment was stuffing envelopes) for not much money, but it WAS work, and fast. I worked a variety of assignments for the next few months until I landed a (terrific) permanent position, and my ex-wife was kept on at the first office she was assigned to until she too found something permanent. I had done this between leaving college and entering the USAF, too, and both times it offered plenty of flexibility re: taking or refusing assignments - in other words, I didn't find temping to be any impediment to conducting a serious job hunt at the same time. Agencies, and firms hiring temps, generally understand you're probably looking to move on when you can Plus temping gets you out of the house and meeting people, and I know several people who have parlayed temp gigs into permanent positions. Foot in the door; it's all about the networking; yadda yadda yadda - cliched but true. If you go this route, I'd recommend talking up your skills with standard MS-Office apps. Being able to type is (or used to be) a huge asset, too - it seemed like a lot of the best-paying assigments went to people who could type 35 wpm or better (the agencies I've dealt with will test you on this stuff). And finally: my friends who have temped long-term usually have their names in with two or three agencies at the same time. I never had to do this because both times I temped I found plenty of work at the very first agency I went to, but I know several people who have found this useful. One caveat: all this was in the urban Northeast (DC, NYC, and Massachusetts). I don't expect my experience would apply to anybody in a rural area. So: it wasn't flipping burgers, exactly, but it worked for me. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Michael Ealem | >how in the world did you reach a salary of 75-100k? >Seriously, I don't get it. By being good at fixing other people's problems - I specialized in bug search-and-destroy and maintenace. One contract gig at JC Penney involved coming in and tracking down a serious bug in the NT services that comprised their point-of-sale systems. They had thrown contractor after contractor at the problem for months, and nobody could find it. I found it in a couple of days - led to a two-year, $50/hr gig with them. I'm good at fixing things that are broken, quickly, and figuring out legacy systems so they can be changed. I can't seem to find businesses that want that skill set anymore. Oh well - looking in the wrong places, I guess. > troll Pot calling the bloody kettle black.... |
| Tue 27 Jul | Peter | >in my particular case, I had a major attack of pride and decided that unemployment compensation would be my last resort. I did that in 2001. I had this fantasy that I could wait out the slump. The other fantasy was that my pride was more important than collecting unemployment. By the time I realized I needed to file for unemployment, I discovered that the folks who laid me off reported me as still working for them (although at $0/month) for 3 months after I got laid off (it was a trick they did to cut down on their unemployment insurance claims). That, combined with the delay in filing meant that my first unemployment check arrived at the same time I landed a new job - 7 months after getting laid off. End result of too much pride in filing for unemployment: car reposessed, got so far behind in mortgage and home owners dues that my house was foreclosed. I stayed with friends last year with my possessions in storage. I was not able to sell them as they are in another state, and several times came close to being sold at auction to pay past due charges. This last time, I used up my lifetime unemployment benefits with the state of Florida. I applied every place I could. The people who were getting hired were teens-low20s or 60s+. No one seemed interested in hiring 43 year old men. It was not a matter of desire, (in)ability to communicate or anything else on my side. The economy is messed up, and the idea that you can always flip burgers or dig ditches is a cruel hoax. |
| Tue 27 Jul | - former car owner in Queens | Just remembered another anecdote (more directly addressing the OP's topic): my cousin was a network admin for years with a large hospital/research center in Boston. He left there for a better-paying job at Lucent just before the crash. He was laid off and was then unemployed for over a year (during which he hunted for another tech job without success). After his unemployment ran out, he got a job at a big greenhouse/nursery to do grunt work (he likes gardening). After about a week they realized that he was a) smart and b) had IT experience, so ever since then they've had him working indoors cleaning up the mess created when a previous CIO-type had purchased a gold-plated purchasing/inventory system that was WAY-overkill for the place (about 100 employees and the management has aspirations to do a lot of business online). So, after a rough & discouraging patch, things have worked out pretty well for him. YMMV, but I've seen firsthand how things can look bleak but turn out all right after all. Three additional thoughts: - Believe it or not, we're not too far away from the time when lots of retail places start adding help for the holiday rush. I have a friend who works at Fortunoff part-time every year starting around Labor Day. - Back where I used to live, UPS was always ALWAYS hiring for their warehouse. (I heard stories about how tough it was to work there, and I know that at one point they were busing in workers from 40 or 50 miles away.) This was some years ago, so again, YMMV, but if there's a big UPS distribution center near you, maybe it's worth a phone call. - Because a lot if it is shift work, I think airlines sometimes have trouble getting ramp workers. I know one guy (in his 40s) who transitioned from an office job (real estate) to working the ramp at Washintgon National - no prior experience; he just applied and they took him. Again, none of this is 'flipping burgers' per se, but it *can* be done. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Michael, I would downgrade my resume. don't mention your degree and make the jobs you list look like you were tech support rather than development. Don't lie - just leave out details as to most of what you did. I don't know how to handle the salary thing though. Maybe instead you could tell them you are sick of IT and making a change. Or better yet, make eye contact, chit chat, get hired. Overall though i want to say you should look for ethir a stealth IT job where you can secretly upgrade your job over time by fixing their systems, or a no-IT job like working for some government office where you just chill out all day long and work on yor own shareware project or read books on architecture. |
| Tue 27 Jul | a programmer | Here's a thought - try applying for jobs that many people use as part-time jobs. For instance, I once had a (gasp) newspaper route. They hire all kinds of people - many of which have a 'main' job, or are working through some financial difficulty (just had a kid, etc.) Temporary seasonal gigs are good, too. Malls, the post office, etc. all tend to hire temps during holiday seasons. And there's always the option of going back to school and being a career student. :-) |
| Tue 27 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Norman made a great point on the turnover thing - if they say they are afraid you'll get bored and leave, ask them what their turnover is and give your personal assurance that you will beat that average and improve their turnover statistics. Regarding the Nickle and Dimed beek, it DOES answer your question Michael so don't say that no one is answering it. And lying is not necessary either - downplay previous experience. If they do ask you directly, answer them honestly. No big deal. If she can get hired by WalMart so can you and I am starting to think the experience would be a good one for you. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Dave | Can't you just say you're hoping to open up your own store/restaurant someday, but have zero experience and want to start at the bottom and work up? I can't imagine that would be a lie for anyone, because who wouldn't kind of want to own their own place. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Michael Ealem | Dennis, > Nickle and Dimed Sorry, I didn't phrase that appropriately - I was interested in hearing if other JOS respondents had gone through a similar experience and what they did. > experience might be good for you In what way? Reply offline if you'd rather, but I've done my share of grunt work in hospitals (VA hospitals are horrible places to work in the trenches), research tech jobs, scut work, all 25-30 years ago. I'd just as soon not go there again - getting close to 50, and the warranty has already expired on the knees and back. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Dennis Atkins | I didn't mean it to be disparaging you in any way or suggesting you haven't paid your dues. Having a crap job is good to stay in touch with the people that's true. But more importantly in your situation, taking a crap jobs can blow out the shutters in a way and give you a fresh perspective. It can be so annoying and so discouranging that your creativity will swell from within and pasects of your personality you didn't even know about will come to the forefront. You will become filled with insights and you will see the path to get back on track with your it career. In some way you are blocked right now. It's not the market, since that is picking up. There is something in your life blocking you from finding and getting the job you know you want. Sometimes the only way to move forward is to take a step backwards. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Dennis Atkins | And I'm just throwing that out there - you started by saying your friends were telling you to work at walMart and you didn't want to do that, so I'm just pushing a little in that direction to see what you say. Your situation sucks - you are having to sell off your possesions, I assume you might be at risk of losing your house. This stuff can cascade into relationships too, I hope that's not an issue but if it is, then you really are at high risk of being homeless. You've had a long career in IT so we have to assume you are competant and able to do the job, so that's not it. Maybe your age is working against you, that's possible but even knowing that that might be an issue doesn't help us solve the problem. I don't know the solution here, there is nothing cut and dried. What are your skills? What are the specific problems getting hired? What about the temp job route? I have had low points, but it sounds like you're doing worse than I. However, I do have a friend who had to atke a job welding chicken cages after the dot com implosion. He never recovered his IT job after that. Instead, he mortgaged his house, bought a commercial property before his credit rating caught up with his unemployment, and started an elite private school. I'm not saying you should do that, but that's the sort of weird direction you might come up with. I do know that he found himself mightily inspired to come up with ideas when he was welding those chicken cages. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Oh, on the ditch digging thing, I have a friend who is a (construction) contractor. He is always telling me how many resumes he gets from ex-(software)-developer dot-com victims. He throws them out because he has tried it before and those guys harbor fantasies about construction work being about fresh air and exercise when the reality is that its about dust and the hot sun or the drizzling rain while lifting heavy objects and putting yourself at risk. They never last and they don't put in enough effort to make it worth while. The one exception he makes is if he actually knows them, he will hire them, but even then it doesn't work out, but the job is sort of a cultural exchange for the prospective construction worker. One place I know is hiring is lumberjacks. I have a friend who does it. It pays decent but you have a good chance of killing yourself or permanent injury. Again though I don't know what shape you are in for something like that or even if you'd consider it. The temp job thing sounds like a good one. You should also apply to the government - they are looking for tech people. Pay is only average but you can be sure your age will not be a factor. |
| Tue 27 Jul | Ron | I don't understand why any of this is a problem. I've met department store clerks who were ex-IT, in fact most the guys in the mens' department where I get my stuff are over age 40 and I doubt were in retail their whole life. Also selling cars and real estate, those are two big careers that hire with no experience and are made up of all types of people. Driving a cab seems like a cliche, but one chatty driver I talked to once (in a suburban area) said he nets $75K a year and loves his job because he doesn't have to work in an office. He used to install networks for the school district. A family friend of ours owns a restaurant with lots of career-switchers including ex-lawyers doing line and prep cooking, fresh out of culinary school or who just took a class at the local community college (or just hired off the street). Another friend (of my parents) retired from his VP executive position at age 58, but couldn't stand being at home so works retail part-time at a shop selling window blinds. That's all anecdotal of course, and I haven't done it, but it does show there are jobs where being overqualified doesn't matter. From my experience in college working retail, I think the main concern is people showing up on time, and not drunk or high. There's always high turnover at low-paying and interim jobs. I recognize a lot of clerks at my local mall, for example, and have watched them bounce around all the different stores over the years. Maybe just keep trying... good luck! And who knows, you might find something more fun. |
| Tue 27 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Is it possible you intimidated the guy? Despite Joel's 'Smart and gets things done' edict, you don't want to hire someone who thinks they're superior to you, or even worse, is superior to you. There are a bunch of sites that have job postings for low to unskilled labor. Craigslist and emoonlighter.com (now guru.com) come to mind. You can bid on projects on rent-a-coder and similar sites. You have to be persistant. It will impress someone if you come back at a reasonable hour a few days later to check up on your application/resume - it shows you're motivated & dedicated. Good luck! Don't give up. |
| Wed 28 Jul | Michael Ealem | Dennis > house > relationship >car All went the way of all mortal flesh - wife divorced me because of the serial job situation, car got repossed (but King and Whatcom County in Washington State both have a wonderful bus system, and there's Amtrak or Greyhound to get around between cities, so that's no problem), and we were always leasing or renting, so no house to lose. But I was homeless for a month, and on government food assistance for two, so been there, done that. I'm still here.... Good points, though - hadn't thought about a MacJob as being a good kick-in-the-pants for getting out of the depression (or making it worse *grin*). Thanks.... |
| Wed 28 Jul | Michael Ealem | repossed -> repossessed. Sorry, I'm usually more careful about things like that. |
| Wed 28 Jul | Michael Ealem | Thanks to all who gave good ideas and responses. It's nice to have a place to come get one's tuchis kicked around a bit..... |
| Wed 28 Jul | Dennis Atkins | I was afraid of that, which is actually a very common situation unfortunately. On the being homeless thing too, a lot of people just do not realize that there are a lot of homeless people who are not on drugs, are not crazy, are not lazy, and have incredible skill sets. I once knew a nuclear physicist who had worked on important projects and taught at university who was on the streets and in complete control of his senses, yet was just basically unemployable at his skill level. Look, given your situation, you need a job. Any job. For your own mental health. Don't worry if its not development or the skill set doesn't match or the pay is bad. If you can avoid heavy lifting and exposure to toxic chemicals that would be great. The suggestion to go with a temp agency really seems a good one, I know I keep mentioning it, but even if the pay is bad, take it. Let them know you can do xyz tech stuff and they can farm you out to do some stuff you might even find interesting. I think for know you're better off if you erase from your memory how much $ you were baking before and focus on survival. You're at the point where you'll need to rebuild your life from scratch, but it can be done. |
| Wed 28 Jul | christopher baus (www.baus.net) | Get on a Greyhound. Move to Nevada. Learn to be a Card Dealer. I just can't believe you can't find ANY work. Hell there is even a reasonable amount of technical work here. Nevada is simply booming. Hell you could make a decent living just cleaning up people's lawns in Tahoe. I swear if you just show up on the DAY that you say you will, you can make a decent living. I'm convinced of it. Yea things aren't what they used to be in technology, but there is work to be had. There has to be something you aren't telling us. |
| Wed 28 Jul | big w | In my country if I'm in Michael's position no way I could use internet :). Anyway, have you ask assistance from your relatives? |
| Wed 28 Jul | Fernanda Stickpot | Temp agencies really can be the way to go. I used to be a secretary and I have worked for any number of agencies over the years. That is how I got the job I have today. There are very few development jobs in my town, so that is how the secretarial agency I've worked for off and on since I was 18, got this placement. I had been laid off from my previous job - dot-bomb collateral damage - and I needed a bit of typing to keep me ticking over until I found something new... Within half an hour of calling them I was back on track. My point is not to suggest that your problems will be solved in an instant if you try this method, but that you will keep the wolf from the door AND build up reputations and experience in various places that may turn out to be lucky for you down the line. You can also be honest with them - tell them you're having trouble getting employed at your skill level and you really need some work - and some will hold it against you, but I bet a lot won't. It's easier than lying because that requires you to second-guess what people want to hear, which usually goes wrong. And I also have to say, courage. I feel really sorry for you and I think that there, but for the grace of God, go I. But I also think you have a chance if you take a deep breath and have at it again. Go all-out. There's a solution and you will find it. |
| Wed 28 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Michael, get over it, you get to teach dance to beautiful women for $120 a month. Why are you stopping that to work at McDonald? Anyway, if anything you are already being much more creative than the average unemployed young kid who's probably scratching their head between McDonald and Burger King. |
| Wed 28 Jul | Michael Ealem | > why are you stopping to work at McDonald's I'm not - it's just that $105 (yeah, I *thought* it was going to be $120, silly me - the community college took out more money) doesn't go very far, and my dance partner keeps suggesting I get a 'day' job. Besides, $105 won't pay the phone bill, utilities, food, etc. |
| Wed 28 Jul | Fernanda Stickpot | That's $105 for how many classes? How many classes would you need to pay the bills? Because whatever you could get at McDonald's wouldn't exactly go far either, and you'd probably have to work more hours to get it. I presume you've already thought about this. But what about personal tango training or stuff you could charge more for? Visiting people's homes, maybe? |
| Wed 28 Jul | Anonx | Michael, Maybe I have missed it but since you are borderline homeless how are you using the internet to post to this group, public library, internet cafe???? |
| Wed 28 Jul | Steve | You know... I make more money selling magazines than I EVER did as a programmer. |
| Wed 28 Jul | igor | You mentioned that you teach Argentine tango. Have you tried a dance studio - like Arthur Murray's or a local outfit? The two main studios here hire all sort of clueless people who know zilch about dancing. I've seen a lot of awful instructors. Since you have experience you shouldn't have much trouble. |
| Wed 28 Jul | Allez-Allez | So why would I take a $6.00/hr job when I can get $310/week tax free unemployment? After that runs out it might be different, but until it does I wouldn't consider it. And it also gets me off of the hook for my child support! |
| Wed 28 Jul | Jon H | muppet writes: 'in my particular case, I had a major attack of pride and decided that unemployment compensation would be my last resort.' It's not welfare, it's called 'unemployment insurance' for a reason - you already paid for it. That's why you generally need to have worked for some period of time to be eligible, and what you get depends on what you've earned. Putting it off due to pride is like refusing to accept your tax refund due to pride, only more so. The exception is when benefits are extended, but most white collar people have probably paid far more than they'll ever collect, so I figure it balances out. |
| Wed 28 Jul | Jon H | 'So why would I take a $6.00/hr job when I can get $310/week tax free unemployment? ' Unemployment isn't tax-free. I believe they collect federal tax. Also, I believe if you get a low-paying job, which pays less than $310/week (or whatever) you can continue receiving the difference. (I'm sure there are conditions.) |
| Wed 28 Jul | Michael Ealem | >That's $105 for how many classes? That was for one class per week, for one month, with 16 people - the price we get paid by the community college fluctuates up or down depending on the number of people who sign up. Our option was renewed, so if we can get 10 people to sign up for the next class, I can probably get at least $75-$90 next month, maybe more if we can hustle up some private lessons (there's the better money - $35/hr, split two ways minus the space rental). But we've only had one student ask for a private so far. We're thinking about cutting loose from the community college , in which case we can pull down $70-$80 per student for an 8-week session. So at 10 students, $400 per month divided by two people, minus space rental of $16.50/hr. Still not gravy train, but better.... It would be nice if I could get the dance business off the ground, but it's really iffy (like any new business). |
| Thu 29 Jul | Fernanda Stickpot | Okay. Again, I'm sure I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here, but I'll ask anyway: - other community colleges and dance studios in neighbouring towns? - any Net listings for dance classes, and what results have you had from that? In the UK we have DanceWeb to search for classes, what do you have? - how many posters & fliers have you put up? Local newspapers? - would teaching students in their homes be an option, rather than renting space? I'm fairly familiar with the economics of running dance classes, at least in the UK, so I don't have any illusions about its being a gold mine. And of course, you can't MAKE people attend your classes. BUT it's something you can do in the evening and at weekends while you look for work during the day. Another thing: the problem with tango is that you have to bring a partner, which is a barrier for some people. Also, it's an art in itself and takes months of study before you can look acceptable, isn't that right? Would it be feasible to learn to teach something easy and popular, like salsa, that would increase your customer base? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Michael Ealem | > community colleges and dance studios There's only one CC in the area that does these sorts of classes, and the other dance studios aren't interested or pay less than the CC >web pages www.tangobellingham.com >posters & fliers Have not brought in a single student after papering the town with them. The CC route has one advantage - they send a catalog for these adult education classes to every household in the count 4 times a year. > in home Of course, if they have enough space and a floor that won't rip your knees apart when you pivot > salsa, other dances There are other dances? (g, r, & d) I don't know salsa, besides, there's a salsa instructor on every street corner in Bellingham, frequently two. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Fernanda Stickpot | Bummer. Oh, well. Still, if it's any encouragement - I've been in similar situations, though thankfully it's never gotten as bad for me as it has for you - and I've tried various things and had them fall flat, too. This will be no consolation NOW - however, a lot of the things I tried came up lucky a long time later, when I'd forgotten them. For example, I tried to sign up with a tutoring agency while still an undergrad and was told that they only took graduates. Forgot about them, then three years later, when I was really desperate for money, they called me up for a ten-hour-a-week cramming gig to get a kid through her exams. So take heart, and keep looking everywhere and trying everything because the magic connection might be where you least expect it. I'm sorry I can't tell you the phone will ring with a $200K a year job within the next 15 minutes, because that's the only thing that would cheer me up if I were in your shoes. But I can tell you that if you keep trying there's a good chance you'll work it out. I pour you a virtual gin and tonic, and pat you on the virtual back. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bella | Stupid to work at a grunt job. Take loans. Get a new degree or certification. Live on credit cards if you have to. Time spent NOT focusing towards a CAREER is fool's time. Shortsighted. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Michael Ealem | >Stupid to work at a grunt job. Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. >Take loans. Get a new degree or certification. Uh, credit record is shite after over two years out of work. Getting a new degree or certification also costs $$. I've got $6.97 right now - think that'll get me a degree? >Live on credit cards if you have to. Been there, done that - all cancelled, owe tens of thousands of dollars. >Time spent NOT focusing towards a CAREER is fool's time. >Shortsighted. Thanks again, I'll keep that in mind. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bella | Get a student loan. Always keep in mind big picture, even if you HAVE to get a grunt job to eat. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Michael Ealem | >Get a student loan Oh, to go with the $6500 in student loans I already owe the government, and can't pay back as it is? It requires _money_ to go to school. Add the $1000 or so I still owe in back taxes, plus bank loans, plus the loan on the car that got repossessed, plus the credit cards, etc., and it adds up to a tidy little sum. And getting a grunt job is what the OP was all about. It's not as trivial as you seem to think. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Bella | A tidy little sum that a shit grunt $10/hr job won't make a DENT in. Wake up, pay back the loans when you're making REAL money. Goal #1 == MAKE MONEY. Goal #1 != Pay back loans. Goal #2 == Pay back loans. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | You could consider taking up a trade. As has been pointed out building site work is not something anybody can do, even if they are young and fit, but you could probably make a reasonable electrician, plumber, plasterer or housepainter. Get a grunt job while you do the certification, training, necessary. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Michael Ealem | > electrician, plumber Already checked this out - in the state of Washington, all require going back to school ($$), and then a lengthy apprenticeship (makes construction work look like a walk in the park, and little or no $ - all of this verified by talking to several master plumbers and electricians) and licensing/certification test ($), tools ($$), equipment ($$$). A good industrial-strentgth multimeter can cost upwards of $300. All of these things cost $$, which is what I don't have. Plus I'm a little old and too banged up (bad back, knees, etc.) to be crawling around under houses (which is what journeymen electricians and plumbers do a *lot* of, according to the old-timers). The game's rigged, folks - the old saw is right, you have to *have* money to make money. |
| Sun 01 Aug | Bella | I find it hard to believe you can't get student loans or payment plans for training/graduate school. If you don't want to invest in your career, then you get what you pay for. Keep making excuses, and enjoy working at McDonalds. Seems like you prefer that. |
| Programmatically rotate a platter. | Mon 26 Jul | Spin me 'round. |
| I need to build a rotating platter (something similar to a motorized lazy suzanne), and have the ability to rotate it at X degree intervals. I buy something like a Lego Mindstorms package which would come with the rotating motor and an API interface, but that seems a bit overkill. Are there any motorized components out there that come with their own interfacing APIs? The motor would probably have to hook up to some control bord which kooked up to a serial/usb port, or the motor could connect directly. Thanks everyone. |
| Mon 26 Jul | Mr. O | Yes, google "stepping motors." |
| Mon 26 Jul | AllanL5 | www.parallax.com has the BasicStamp module, which interfaces really well to Servo units. For a 'full-circle', you'll need a 'modified' servo unit, along with some kind of position encoder. For a first unit, a 'Board Of Education' with a BasicStamp2, along with a 'Modified Servo' should do the job. You'll spend around $150 for all that. The Lego Mindstorms may be a little more expensive, but have fewer interface problems. www.basicmicro.com sells the 'Atom' microcontroller, based on the PIC16F876, and an interface board for it, and 'Modified Servo's also. The Atom does what a Stamp does, only with more speed and memory and code space. And a much better debugger. On those web-pages, you might also find references to a single-board which provides an RS-232 to Servo interface, that could be controlled directly from the PC. |
| Mon 26 Jul | Jon Hendry | How about flashing a panel up periodically, saying 'Wouldn't a Microwave Pizza Be Good Right Now?' Eventually, the user will get a microwave pizza, and cook it, which would involve the rotation of a platter. |
| Mon 26 Jul | Peter | You will find Circuit Cellar magazine in B&N and Borders. http://www.circuitcellar.com/ They have lots of ads for interesting hardware doohickies. I'm sure that there will be a few ads that are selling things you want. Maybe some that your wife will let you keep in the house, too! |
| Tue 27 Jul | i like i | Just a thought, but could a standard headphone socket provide the output to something? Would that be a nifty way to hijack something every computer probably has, and use it to control a robot? |
| Sun 01 Aug | Kyralessa | 'Eventually, the user will get a microwave pizza, and cook it, which would involve the rotation of a platter.' In QA we discovered your system is buggy; not all users' microwaves have platters. |
| How do create a website shortcut in Firefox? | Sat 31 Jul | |
| Stupid question, must have been asked, sure shot. Read to get flamed. No probs. How do I create a shortcut for a website using Firefox? For eg. I frequently visit the search engine http://foo.com to search for meanings of terms I dont understand. Id like to create a shortcut so that the next time I only need to type something like Foo in the address bar, and my browser is directed to http://www.foo.com, and when I type Foo bar, the browser takes me to something like http://www.foo.com?q=bar and the meaning of bar is displayed. Thanks! |
| Sat 31 Jul | Simon Lucy | Use Manage Bookmarks, find the bookmark and select its properties and put the Shortcut you want to use in Keyword. Then when you type the keyword in the URL entry it will bring up the bookmark. |
| Sat 31 Jul | no name | Thanks for the solution. That works! |
| Employment in the 3d graphics industry. | Sat 31 Jul | looking glass |
| Hi JoS readers, I was wondering if any of you guys was familiar with the job requirements and working conditions in the 3d industry - not computer or video games. Im currently enrolled in a CompEng masters program, which I should complete in April of next year. Ive taken most graphics courses in my uni when I was an undergrad, and about four months in my masters (in January) I started developing a global illumination renderer, basically implementing popular non real time rendering algorithms such as ray tracing, path tracing and photon mapping. My program has grown fairly big (upwards of 8,000 lines of code, excluding blank lines and comments) and I should release it on sourceforge very soon. Ive learned a lot in the process, and even though my masters subject has nothing to do with 3d graphics, Im seriously considering it as a career option when Im done with school. Ive read many books on the subject as well, and more general books like Code Complete 2, to develop my programming abilities. Im very satisfied with this experience and think it has made me a much better programmer, and even though Im not a guru I focus on learning as much as I can. I want to include this project on my resume when I start looking for a job. I was wondering how well this would be received at development companies in the field, and what would be your suggestions to improve my chances in that regard. What do software companies look for in a program, demo or code sample submitted by an applicant? What about general software engineering and development? Do companies value constant learning, based not only on coding experience, but also reading opinions of experts on these subjects? I ask this because my learning style is very much academic, i.e. I tend to learn as much as possible from other peoples mistakes rather than my own, by reading books, visiting places such as JoS, or Sinks weblog, etc. Any input would be appreciated. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | Oh cool - I was about to start something similar. My daughter is a gifted artist, and loves the computer (you should see what she can accomplish with Paint - it sickens me). Is it possible to get a BSCS which focuses more on graphic design than writing compilers? Or would a BA in graphic arts be more appropriate? (Pity they don't have a BSCA...) Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | Zip | Most graphic design programs deal a lot with computers because the people who sign up for them already have artistic ability and just need to know how to apply that to the computer. Two of my cousins are graphic designers/artists and they make decent money at it. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Sassy | FWIW I have a BA in Graphic Design, but worked as a developer throughout / after school Philo, there is no such thing as an 'Artistic BSCS', but some schools, like UCSD near me, offer a BS in 'Computing in the Arts', which offers the programmer / artist a bit more options. These are good options for people into 3D. If you're daughter is really a fine artist who has software skills, don't stick in her in a graphic design or computing program. Let her develop her talent. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Sassy | BS Computing in the Arts = BA Computing in the Arts You're = Your |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | I *am* letting her develop her talent. Sadly, the best way to help her keep her options open is to send her to a good college, since with a degree in her back pocket she'll have more opportunities. So the trick is sending her to a college that will allow her the flexibility to follow her wishes (to some degree, anyway). Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | looking glass | Sassy, I see you have a graphics design background; any comment on my post above? |
| Sat 31 Jul | Sassy | Philo: I guess what I'm saying is this: if she has keen fine arts skills, i.e. illustration / sculpture / painting , unless she enjoys making brochures and business cards, graphic design is not going to allow her to fully develop those skills - most graphic design programs are very centered around commerial / production arts, and most pro designers contrat to fine artists when that material is needed. Similarly, the 'Computing in the Arts' program is much more well-suited for someone interested in things like video games, programmatic graphics creation, etc.. as opposed to fine arts. Looking Glass - if you are interested in graphics programming, and you seem to be: raytracing / rendering / lighting / etc... an arts program is probably not for you. Your CS background will be a much bigger asset. Same If you are interested in 3D engines. Game companies hire engineers to do these jobs, not artists. Now if you are interested in the modeling / level design / character design side of things, the art background is also an excellent idea. Typically graphic arts is really a place for people interested in commercial production arts. This is not the place for people who have reached high-level engineering / illustration levels. i went through a lot of pain trying to eek out an interesting curiculum with teachers who did not understand programming and what was possible. The best impact I had was when I took their Flash / Multilmedia projects and applied programming techniques to the 'timeline' animations they were assigning. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Sassy | Philo, I know you are on the east coast, but you may want to look at Pasadena Art Center, they have an excellent program. I know that SVA in NYC is a great program as well. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Sassy | one more thing: Looking Glass - yes, include this program as your demo. Continue to show hands-on proficiency. Game companies are incredibly competitve and tend to hire the best and brightest and proceed to burn them out. It sounds to me like you are on the right track |
| Sat 31 Jul | Philo | Sassy - thanks for the info! So far she seems to be most interested along the arts/graphics border. She likes drawing and sketching, but really lives for the computer - web design, flash, fireworks, is begging me for photoshop, etc. And the Pasadena Art Center looks awesome - fairly well known in art circles, I take it? Philo |
| Sat 31 Jul | Sassy | Pasadena Art Center is possibly the best *practical* art school in the country - it is very well known for it's automotive design progam - google it. What makes this school stand out is it's strong connection to industry, and it's reputation as a place to push boundaries without being mired in 'art for art's sake'. Of course this is an incredibly expensive school, but if the west coast is an option, CSULB has an excellent BFA program that is much much more affordable (especially CA residency). These 2 programs are typically regarded as the best in Southern California. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Sassy | Philo - your daughter actually sounds like a perfect design school candidate. Great programs really do make all the difference! |
| Sat 31 Jul | no name | Looking glass, to answer your question, it all depends. 3D graphics companies will look for technical expertise along with artistic ability. Several CS graphics programs in California have close ties with CG (computer graphics) companies and are respected as providing the types of graduates and training those companies want. You should contact large CG companies and continue this discussion with them. Summer internships would be invaluable for your career. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Philo, check out the technical graphics program at RIT (rit.edu). Technical training so students are employable, but the schools attract like minded best of class artists who support each other. |
| Deep Cynicism | Fri 30 Jul | Zack J. |
|
Does it hang in the air forever?
Is the economy still sluggish? Is the bubble still looming behind? Why cant I sell my losers and move on? Can technology look ahead again? Can we get back to dreaming up products that are going to Change The World (tm) and stop apologizing and feeling silly for the last time we were promising to Change The World(tm)? Im not sorry. Whats wrong with the bubble? Whats so bad about a little enthusism? It beats this.
Are the best and brightest no longer interested in the whir of the silicon machines? This is the job I always wanted. I love to put together the {electronic[1] levers() and pulleys()} that make up the #lightspeed |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | Sure, it's just harder than it looked. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard | Have a drink and shut the hell up. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Zack J. | Just thinking aloud, apologies to seem glum. but it seems the last two years have been cast in the limited vision of post-bubble. Too much joy or ambition is too much like the bubble and frowned upon? Do you guys hear a drumbeat of optimism? Thanks! |
| Fri 30 Jul | Clay Whipkey | I don't necessarily hear a drumbeat of optimism, but I believe I can play my own drumbeat of success. This is still America, and I still believe smarts and ambition and hard work can bring you success. Just as long as you don't get success and greed confused. |
| Fri 30 Jul | GenX'er | 'I'm just passing through here on my way to somewhere civilized.' 'Love, peace & harmony? Very nice, very nice, very nice... Maybe in the next world.' Moz / The Smiths |
| Fri 30 Jul | one programmer's opinion | Yes, I believe the best days are over for many. Remember it wasn't just silicon valley and the dot-com boom that fueled all the new development work that took place during the mid-to-late 1990s. The Y2K crisis (we gotta replace those legacy systems) also played a very big role. While there might be plenty of maintenance work taking place, there are only so many of those type of jobs that are available and they tend to be career killers. Granted greedy WallStreet folks hurt many people, but so has piracy and the abundance of willing workers. It is pretty difficult to compete in an industry where the cost of entry is so low. In many instances all you need is time, enough money to buy the proper computer hardware, and an internet connection. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Forbes | 'In many instances all you need is time, enough money to buy the proper computer hardware, and an internet connection.' Add in 'and a very specialized way of thinking'. I realize this will be viewed as elitism, but it isn't (at least not in the manner perceived) -- everyone is good or great at different things. Some people play baseball really well, or the piano, or they paint, or they cook, or they are great compliance professional (i.e. sales). Other people have the knack for IT -- just having the money to buy a computer and an internet connection doesn't make you credible in this profession, just as buying a bat, or an electronic keyboard, doesn't necessarily make you a professional ball player or musician, respectively. Employers have caught onto this which is why the hiring game is an incredibly rigorous jumping through hoops - they have a lot of false negatives (leading to a lot of resentment), but probably very few false positives. In fact let me take that further and say that a lot of the bright people have left this field now that it isn't the infinite growth field it was, and a lot of the bright people changed their major (or their hopes as expressed to their guidance counsellor) -- the number of people who can jump through those hoops has seen a drastic decline. If this is really the career for you, and if you have the passion and dedication, and if you can couple that with some other periphery skills that are necessary in the field today (interpersonal skills and communication - if you smell and are obnoxious you're not going to cut it anymore), there are as many opportunities or more. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Albert D. Kallal | Hum, you have to separate certain things here. I don’t see much, if any possibility that someone with a 3, or 6 week html course is going to walk into a high paying job. These kinds of things are just silly, and should have never happened. As for the stock market? Well there as a great post here a few days ago to an link that pointed out that to sell your stock, someone else has to jump in. It is basically a marry go around that you hope to step off by selling to someone else (this is nothing new, and I understood this concept years ago). Unless more money is going in then what is going out, then you are in trouble. The Japan index was at one time at 38,000. Now, it hover around 11,000. (it has been that way for years and years, and I don’t see it going anywhere). The same applies to the dow..and it likely will be stuck at current levels for years to come. However, I would not bet my income on the stock market. However, right now I have NEVER been more busy. In fact, I at the point where I may have to resort to hiring and farming out work again (I don’t want to do this, and will hog as much work as I can). I am content to bill out 10 hours a day in place of giving up that billing income to hire someone right now. If I get too burned out..then I will have to hire!...but untill then, I going to sock as much away as I can! Albert D. Kallal Edmonton, Alberta Canada kallal@msn.com http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn |
| Sat 31 Jul | one programmer's opinion | Dennis wrote, 'Add in and a very specialized way of thinking.' Granted, not everyone in the world can be a great/good graphic designer or software developer. However, I believe there are enough people on this planet who are capable of doing the basics at a 'good enough' where management can't tell the difference level and when they do get stuck on some problem they have a vast universe of resources at their disposal (i.e. ask for help on the internet, grab source code from sourceforge, read a book, etc.). The simple fact is the barrier of entry used to be a lot higher than it is nowadays. When I got into this field PC hardware was new and very expensive (same with PC software), the public Internet didn't exist, and I didn't have access to a mainframe from home. Dennis wrote, 'Other people have the knack for IT -- just having the money to buy a computer and an internet connection doesn't make you credible in this profession...' True, but being able to make Windows sing using C++ doesn't necessarily make someone credible either. The examples you used -- a baseball player, cook, painter, piano player, singer -- these are all professions where it is pretty simple to tell the difference between someone who is good and someone who isn't. While I can place any JOS forum member into an I.T. work environment of my choosing and make them look incompetent, this isn't something you can do with say a great baseball player. You can place great baseball player on any ball team you want and most people will recognize his talent. Having said this, there are people who have been able to specialize within the I.T. industry and they have been doing quite well for many years. Dennis wrote, '..a lot of the bright people have left this field now that it isn't the infinite growth field it was...' A lot of the bright people have left this field for many reasons that have nothing to do with the lack of infinite growth. The fact is competition for work is fierce nowadays and each company has specific and changing needs which makes it very difficult for a talented programmer to find and keep a job. Some companies want to hire corporate ladder climbers, other want coding geniuses, and many seem to want people who can do everything except for leaping over tall buildings. |
| Sat 31 Jul | . | Isn't it about time that you chaps pulled up your socks and realise that the U.S. of A. is not the be all and end of all of mother Gaia? Bad times, eh! Feeling down and out? Pack your bags and move to where the action is. My grandpas and my uncles did that a century ago. They survived and made the U.S. of A. Time you spoilt brats paid back. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Albert D. Kallal | >A lot of the bright people have left this field for many reasons that have nothing to do with the lack of infinite growth I agree. I will say that I have often commented that we likely still have TOO many people in the IT business right now. I do think that more have to leave. (many have seen my posts here for several years mentioning this idea). I know of several people who were considering (or looking) for software jobs. Of about 3 of them looking for the last 3 years, virtually all of them have wound up in help disk, or tech support jobs at some of the larger companies in town. In these cases, the people just realized that high paying software development jobs were NOT going to appear. Further, lack of software development jobs, and the needed 'high' skill set also have stopped most intelligent people with a brain to stay away from software development. We are not getting those folks that would normally choose dentistry, or the medial field choosing software now. A family often makes a lot of sacrifices to put members through school, and software stuff is now rather far down on the list of desirable careers. I mean, people can only take so many stories about the dot bust thing. Further, those stories about software people loosing their jobs and moving back home (with a wife and kids too!) is not exactly the kind of stuff that makes people want to be in our industry). Hey, I am making good money, hey..I just found a cool wife....hey, I just lost my job!! This story has been repated over an over. It is quite easy to get married when you got the doe! So, finally, after about 3 or 4 years, I FINALLY see people moving on to other areas of the economy (some are staying in the IT indusrry..but not developing software). This speaks VERY well of the situation for software developers that ride this storm out. So, right now, I continue to see people leaving the development side of our industry. In addition, I see very few coming in now. So, in a few more years, the job situation should be ok. We still have a ways to go to get things down to the pre-99 levels, but we are now finally moving in that direction. As a result, some companies can’t find contract workers very easy anymore, as so few remain (people have to eat…they have moved on!). So, the pickings for jobs seems a lot better right now (there are less jobs being offered, but also less people trying to get those jobs). On the other hand, Dell computer just announced a support center in our City…and they are looking for 600 support people in MY city! There is a job fair this week I believe..they are opeing soon! Check out: http://www.recruitingsite.com/csbsites/Dell/Joblist1.asp?supercategorycode=13692 So, there does seem to be jobs in the IT industry, but a larger portion of them seems to be service type jobs. None of the above dell jobs is software development for example. Albert D. Kallal Edmonton, Alberta Canada kallal@msn.com http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn |
| Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | ---' It is quite easy to get married when you got the doe!'--- Oh Deer! |
| Sat 31 Jul | . | Very punny. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Phil | It really looks like the way it was in 1993. |
| Sat 31 Jul | hoser | 'Bad times, eh! Feeling down and out? Pack your bags and move to where the action is. My grandpas and my uncles did that a century ago. They survived and made the U.S. of A. Time you spoilt brats paid back.' Huh. Like your gampa, we're still kicking ass and taking names. 'Cept I forgot your name. |
| Sat 31 Jul | . | The name's Kazinczy, if you really want know. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Zip | This is especially tough on entry level software engineers like me who REALLY WANT TO GET IN but can't because of the difficulty ATM. (I'm not in it for the money. I'm in it because I like to code. Always have and always will). I see a lot of people talking about how they got in but none of them had the chore of getting in NOW. They all got in before or during the boom or perhaps a little bit after (but not much). (I won't be so naive as to say that there aren't entry level people getting jobs as software engineers/programmers it's just a hella fight to do so and me graduating in 2001 right before 9/11 and the recession and the .COM bust didn't help either.) AND FOR GOD'S SAKE DON'T TELL ME I NEED TO WORK AT THE DAMN HELP DESK OR BE SUPPORT TECHNICIAN BECAUSE GUESS WHAT? I have done these things and the programmers that are at the companies are either contract or they like their jobs and don't want to give them up to a 'help desk guy with a programming degree'. Then when you go to interview the interviewers have a problem with 'how does help desk relate to programming?' and no matter what you say they seem to put you down. My rant for the day. |
| Best Compression Program? | Fri 30 Jul | Zip |
| Whats the best Zip program now? Is it bzip2? or 7-Zip perhaps? Are there any others? I know both are better than WinZip. Using 7-Zip on my install program (instead of WinZip) I save about 500k. Not bad. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Gabriel Landau | Have you considered WinRAR or WinACE? I usually get much nicer compression rates with them than with regular ZIPs. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Just out of curiousity, why do you need the zip? In this era of broadband and writable DVDs, it's rare you really need to squeeze that extra bit of compression out of anything. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Formerly someone else | I second winrar. I can rar a 16 gb database small enough to burn on a cd. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Chris Tavares | Define 'better'. Better compression? Faster compression? Better compression in same amount of time? Freely available? As source code? As a library or utility? |
| Fri 30 Jul | . | Not everyone is on broadband! I am now, used to have a phone line that would not get more than 25K. In that circumstance, saving 500K saves several minutes. And compressing 25Meg to 10Meg is a big difference. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.alexlechuck.com | WinRAR rocks. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Nix | WinRAR compress more but it's is _very_ slow. |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | 'I can rar a 16 gb database small enough to burn on a cd.' That's a good use. Plus you specify an archive size, so if it won't fit on 1 CD, you can get it on to 3 CDs. |
| Sat 31 Jul | killer | as far as i know best of mainstream is [win]rar3+. however there are better in compression ratio. best or very close to best is rk. there was console version that was free, now it's commercial winrk, can be found at http://www.msoftware.co.nz/ |
| Sat 31 Jul | Reply to "Best Compression Program?" | Bandwidth is about 5 cents/GB. One million people are going to download the 20 MB new release of your product. That bandwidth will cost you $1000. Or you compress your 20 MB and find that it's now only 12 MB. Because it is 12 MB, another 1 million people dialup users download your product. So you distribute to twice as many customers (2 million) for only a little more money ($1200). Of course, this is contrived, but I hope you can appreciate that there's some logic to it. |
| Sat 31 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Also a good point, but then ZIP would probably be the only way to go because it's the only format with the proper market pentration. Unless you bundle an unzipper in your app and package it as an install.exe, of course. So 'Best Compression Program' isn't for widely distributing files amongst the world. |
| Word Sucks | Fri 30 Jul | Word hater |
| I am trying to write a single page letter in Word. One font minimal formatting. Word keeps crashing. This is how it always is with Word. Doing anything more complex is even worse. I bring up this case because it is such a simple one. I know what you are going to say - I need to reinstall Windows, I need to check the registry, I must be doing something wrong, it is all the dumb-ass users fault. MS is not to blame! Their sofware is so perfect, so squeaky clean as to be above reproach. But why the f* should I do that? My other software doesnt crash all the time like this. Is Word some new fragile program with the bugs being worked out? No! It is what, 15 years old now? What 15 year old software still has these sorts of bugs? Is it some free software where I should not expect s tability? No! I have paid several thousand dollars for this software over the years with all the upgrades, none of which fixed any bugs and all of which introduced troubles. The best reason to hope for the end to microsoft is it will mean that people stop installing Word. that will make my life much easier. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Code Monkey | Dude for such stuff just use Wordpad. Atleast it is free and starts faster after a crash :-) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Going Backwards in Time | I solved this problem by setting up a computer for just word processing. It's a 386 running DOS and a really old version of Word Perfect. It never crashes and is much more responsive than doing it on a modern POS computer. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Interrupt 0x10 | 1. Use AbiWord. 2. Start VB. Place a rich edit control on a form with a couple buttons. 3. Use WordPad. 4. Use NotePad. 5. Use HTML. 6. Use Latex. 7. Use StarOffice. Lot's of options. I don't think I have even covered them all. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Almost Anonymous | Here's the thing, Word crashed for you all the time but it doesn't crash all the time for most people. And you know all those other apps you have that don't crash -- I bet there is someone out there for which any one of them crashes all the time. I don't know what causes this weird mysterious per-user app crashing. It's probably something like you've said -- registry problems, hardware issues, DLL-hell conflicts, plugins from other apps, adware, spyware, viruses, etc. The possibilities are truely endless -- and that's the problem. So quit whining about word -- I haven't had the thing crash in forever. ;) |
| Fri 30 Jul | ... | He also forgot to mention he's using Microsoft Word for Windows 95. |
| Fri 30 Jul | The Donger | I use Word very day (the version from Office 2000.) I've been using it for 3 years now and it has never 'crashed'. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Chris Peacock | I've been using Office 2000 for 6 years without a problem... |
| Fri 30 Jul | DaveF | Word has some frustrating features and a still has some substantial bugs. But my experience is that it does not frequently crash. Over the past decade I've used Word 6.0, Word 6(?) for Mac, Word 95, Word 97, and now Word 2000. They have all been generally solid. They especially didn't crash frequently on small documents. There's something wrong with your computer or your Word installation. You really need to repair your hardware or reinstall software. It should't behave like that. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Captain Obvious | See, you guys are all wrong. Word is from Microsoft, and Microsoft is the suck, remember? In all seriousness, the only people I ever see this happen to is people that have been jacking up their registry trying to get a game or whatnot to run better... Then they start having all these problems, and voila!, it's Micro$oft's fault. I run Windows 2000 at work, and Windows XP Professional at home. I cannot remember the last time either of these machines crashed. The only thing I have had happen that is frustrating was a year or so ago, every once in a while VS.NET would just close down, no warnings, but that hasn't happened in a year, and only happened 2 times. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Tim Sullivan | Word has not crashed on me since, oh, 1996 or so. I've done one-pagers, many-pagers, complex documents involving graphics, toc's, headers, footers and ample VBScript. So, the real question is: what is different about your machine? Instead of placing the blame on Word, perhaps you should look at things like video drivers and so forth. Bugs in those can manifest themselves in all manner of queer places, and Word is no exception. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Myron A. Semack | While Word certainly has a lot of 'autoformat' options that are annoying, I don't think I've seen Word actually crash since the days of Office 97. How exactly does it crash? Does it give you the 'this program has performed an illegal operation and must be closed' message? Or is it just locking up? If it's actually 'crashing', what does the crash report show? Do you have any 3rd-party Office add-ins installed? Is this a legitimate copy (not some Warez cracked thing)? Have you done a 'repair' install? How about downloading the latest service update? Are you plagued by frequent crashes in other applications? If so, this could point to some other system-wide problem (bad RAM). If Word is the only thing crashing, then it's probably just something screwed up in your MS Word install. |
| Fri 30 Jul | . | A troll guys! Just another one from under the bridge. That is all there is to the OP. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Marcus Blankenship | Use gVIM. Very nice. www.vim.org. ;-) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Rob Warner | One thing to check: is your default printer an HP printer on the network? This one bit me for awhile until I figured out that I only got the crash when my laptop wasn't on the network. Here's some URLs: http://www.computing.net/office/wwwboard/forum/3147.html http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/AppErrors/ProbsOpeningWordContent.htm |
| Fri 30 Jul | patrick | don't hate the player, hate the game! |
| Fri 30 Jul | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard | >> It never crashes and is much more responsive than doing it on a modern POS computer. Just for reference are you talking about 'Point of Sale' or 'Piece of Shit'? I have been confused by these two in the past and your context is not obvious. |
| Fri 30 Jul | the party has started | Is there a gmail-equiv word processor yet? |
| Fri 30 Jul | mb | i started a doc the other week and it crashed on a 1 paragraph document. i then restarted, crash recovery opened the doc, and word crashed again. repeat a few times. i then restarted, opened a different 25-page doc, then the 1-paragraph doc worked again. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Hey Rob, thanks for the links. I think my girlfriend may have had that problem. I couldn't figure out what the difference was between our two installs of Windows & Office, but the network printer thing makes sense. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Code Monkey | >So quit whining about word -- I haven't had the thing crash in forever. ;) Oh yeah right....I guess the results returned by http://search.microsoft.com/search/results.aspx?st=b&na=80&qu=word+crash&View=en-us are just a figment of my imagination. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Word hater | * It's Office 2000 Pro. * There is not a single game on this computer, not even solitaire. * Problem persists through reinstallation of the operating system. * I am required to use Word at work because it is the standard. * Word SUCKS. PS, Word fanboys SUCK too. :-P Seriously, other software doesn't crash like this. It's a damn word processor. This is 2004, actually getting towards 2005. This should not be a problem in 2004. A word processor in 2004 should be so damn stable that nothing at all should make it crash and any crashes should be reported and $1000 be paid to the victim of the crash for the inconvenience. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Word hater | ' you should look at things like video drivers and so fort' This is such bullcrack. Wy is word so unstable that it is sensitive to these imaginary bugs in video drivers that oddly don't affect any other software? Why because they do not exist. Word crashes not because of some video driver (like give me a freaking break already) but because Word sucks and the people who wrote Word are no-talent ass-clowns. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard | ass-clowns is right! |
Fri 30 Jul | Philo | 'This should not be a problem in 2004. A word processor in 2004 should be so damn stable that nothing at all should make it crash and any crashes should be reported'
[snip reparations to the user]
You know what, I agree 100%, and so does Microsoft. There is really only one problem here...
* It's Office 2000 Pro.You're not using a word processor in 2004. You're using a word processor in 1999. Philo |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | > You're not using a word processor in 2004. You're using a word processor in 1999. It's good and all to beat your own best product (especially if it's industry leading). However the same programmers who coded Office 2004 likely coded Office 2000. Is this not true? To a programming team, that's just 2 branches (if not 3 or 4) in the source tree. What's to prevent them from making something rock solid in the older branch? I can see the financial reason to ensure Office 2004 gets all the cool enhancements that justifies the upgrade investment, but there's no reason people who took the effort to buy into 2000 should be stuck with Netscape quality beta crap. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Having said that, Word Hater, you should think about applying all service packs out for Office 2000. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Word hater | All the service packs are applied. Philo, if you can guarantee us that spending tens of thousands of dollars upgrading to yet another version of Word written by the same people will result in a product that works well and never crashes, then I think I can talk them into doing it. But Microsoftw will have to put their money where their big fat mouth is this time. No more lies from you ass clowns. We want a guarantee against crashing, a guarantee backed up by a bond. If this new Word you say is so much better crashes, then we get all our license fees back, all our costs of installing and maintaining, and triple the license in damages. That should not be a problem for you to guarantee since you are so damn sure that the problem is we haven't upgraded enough times. But its good to hear that the latest versions of MS software are so rock solid that you are going to offer is this guarantee. Or are you? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Word hater | The boss just informed me that these Office 2000 licenses were purchased in early 2002, not 1999. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | > The boss just informed me that these Office 2000 licenses were purchased in early 2002, not 1999. What difference does it make when you bought the licenses??? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | You know maybe it's possible you guys should use typewriters from Brothers, they are a reputable brand and there's an erase button. OCR works pretty well now days, and you don't have to worry about hard drives crashing or cds failing taking millions of dollars of documents with them. They are way cheaper than most PCs and fully compatible with fax machines. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Speaking of fax spams, when will fax machines start having a white list or login protection? |
| Fri 30 Jul | WildTiger | Or post Watson ids (from Event log at the moment of crash)so Philo can figure out what happens. Or you turned error reporting off? Then why do you think no one knows about your problems? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Philo | 'We want a guarantee against crashing, a guarantee backed up by a bond' Nope, can't do it. You should go buy that other word processing package that comes with a bond against crashing. Oh wait, there isn't one. BTW, does your company have a serious corporate-wide problem with Word crashing? Or is it just you? If it's a serious company-wide problem, drop me a line and I'll see what I can do for you. Philo |
Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | ----'You know what, I agree 100%, and so does Microsoft. There is really only one problem here...
* It's Office 2000 Pro.'---- This really is the most asinine statement I have heard in a long time. 'You must upgrade to our newest product since the last version we sold you for hundreds of dollars was a crock of shit, so fork out again. Yours, trustworthy computing.' More importantly it is untrue. Word 2000 is perfectly stable on any OS from Win 98SE onwards, and certainly is unlikely to crash over a one page letter. One possibility is that your normal.dot is corrupted. Delete it and see if that makes a difference. Run Office Repair. If you're still getting the problem suspect some strange kind of incompatibility with other software on the system. Anybody remember the famous MS Photodraw bug which would crash if your computer had an odd number (it didn't matter what odd number) of fonts installed? Or where having a certain font installed caused Access 97 to tell you you didn't have a license? And while we're on the subject of fonts, that could be the explanation. Look at how many fonts you have installed. More than four or five hundred and you may well have a problem. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Tim Sullivan | > This is such bullcrack. Wy is word so unstable that it is sensitive to these imaginary bugs in video drivers that oddly don't affect any other software? < *rolls eyes* I can't even tell you how many times a faulty video driver has caused crashes in one specific program and not another. So yes, of course the problem is with Word, and your computer's settings, hardware, drivers and so on has nothing to do with it. It's /my/ computer, with a buggy video driver and video games installed that make Word magically start working. Moron. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Myron A. Semack | Please post some more info about the crashes and I will try to help. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Eric V. | Rarely, Word 2000 happens to close down quietly without asking me if I want to save my changes. It occurs when I make a big copy-paste of French text from an other app ( say Internet Explorer ). I guess it's maybe the dictionary feature that makes it crash, since Word is configured by default to English text. It probably happened 4-5 times in the last 2 years I've used Word. |
| System Administrator Appreciation Day | Fri 30 Jul | a cynic writes... |
| Its today. see http://www.sysadminday.com/ Remember gifts of money are always acceptable ;-) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bicuspix | The likelihood of user appreciation day is directly proportional to the amount of cash. |
| Fri 30 Jul | AllanL5 | Gee, my SysAdmin told me that EVERY day was SysAdmin Appreciation day, if I wanted to get stuff done!
They have the power, you know, and they guard it jealously. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Chris Tavares | Just remember that they're doing you a favor by letting you use their network, and you'll get along fine. It doesn't matter if you're the CEO and you paid for the whole shebang, it's still their network. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard | Shut-up you assmonkeys or else I'll copy all sorts of undesirable files into your disk space and get your ass canned! Capiche? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Formerly someone else | Why is it that I think a quality of being a good sis admin is that you should enjoy picking the wings off flys. |
| Sat 31 Jul | :-P | Hardware engineer, software engineer and a network engineer are on the way to Defcon and develop a flat tire- SE: Let's call roadside assistance HE: Let's stop and fix the flat NE: Keep driving |
| Determining Linux flavours from scripts | Fri 30 Jul | Niranjan Mahapathra |
| I have some scripts running in Linux and I need to determine the Linux flavour (RH EL/SuSE) in which it is running. Can anyone suggest a reliable way for determining this ? Using "uname" doesnt seems to be a reliable way. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Andres | If it is Red Hat or Mandrake, there should be a file '/etc/redhat-release' with the info. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Michael Moser | /proc/version contains system version and distribution name. so from a shell script it is probably something like local is_redhat=`cat /proc/version | grep Redhat | wc -l` etc etc. |
| Fri 30 Jul | V. Sannikov | Michael, IMHO /proc/version works until You rebuild the kernel (security patch, for example). Am I wrong? |
| Fri 30 Jul | moseswhitecotton | dont know if its bulletproof but I use cat /etc/issue |
| Fri 30 Jul | Michael Moser | > /proc/version works until You rebuild the kernel don't know, for me it didn't, even after kernel rebuilds - i.e. when you take the sources from the distribution as a baseline. |
| Fri 30 Jul | GD | There is no way to reliably determine this. Ask yourself why you need to know. If you need to know because things are in different locations between distros, then just check for the locations of those things instead. If, however, you are just collecting statistical data, try *asking the user*. |
| Fri 30 Jul | James | recent versions of linux distributions that conform to the LSB place this information in a standardized place: /etc/lsb-release |
| Sat 31 Jul | matt | Isn't this what all that horrific GNU Autoconf crap is supposedly good for? |
| Combating SPAM | Fri 30 Jul | Jack of All |
| So how would a bayesian filter stop this (taken from an emails html source): we have 1000 exclusive hardcore photos with little, tasty children and over 300 Megabytes of high quality hardcore CP videos Is there anything out there that could work with this? |
| Fri 30 Jul | i like i | argh, ignore markup? |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | I guess in principle comparing the text components to a dictionary would work. If it doesn't achieve a high enough "score" (i.e. if too much of the content was garbage) then junk it. It might also have the beneficial side-effect of making people take a bit more care over their spelling when sending email :-) Hmm, maybe it should check grammar as well... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Nate Silva | A bayesian filter would index the end result that a human sees. From http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/background.html : 'In the end, the best results were found by stripping out most HTML clues.' From http://spamprobe.sourceforge.net/ : 'Ignores HTML tags in emails for scoring purposes unless the -h command line option is used. Many spams use HTML and few humans do so HTML tends to become a powerful recognizer of spams. However in the author's opinion this also substantially increases the likelihood of false positives if someone does send a non-spam emai containing HTML tags.' |
| Fri 30 Jul | a cynic writes... | The short answer is 'Practice'. The longer answer is that the existance of a trick like that becomes a clue to identify spam. So spammers will be forced to change tricks as they go along and it will get harder for them. On a personal level, yesterday 44 spam e-mails went to my junk folder. Of those 5 initally went into the suspect folder plus one which was Ok. None got through. When there's a change in tactics maybe 1 or 2 get through and I get ~10 in the suspect pile. Given the alternative is to sort through them myself, I can live with that hit rate. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | The dictionary thing could also work against this: http://www.marktaw.com/temp/sexvideos.txt One of the more clever emails I've received. Each chunk of characters in 'CLICK HERE' is actually a *different* link, I think to Geocities pages. Probably redirects. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Geeze you guys post fast. |
| Fri 30 Jul | kc | Quite a few people are working on simple perl scripts to strip out the tags and then run the regular bayesian filtering and then a spellchecker. |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | How many hits did you get on your sex videos line, MarkTAW? <grin> |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Hey, wow, you got the TAW as all caps. Most people think it's a word. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Matthew Lock | > So how would a bayesian filter stop this (taken from an > emails html source): A bayesian filter would stop this because it doesn'tt have any ham words in it, no ham words means it won't end up in your inbox. For an email to get in your inbox it would have to have ham words *and* minimal spam words. This will help you understand: http://www.paulgraham.com/better.html By the way I think the fact that spammers are now doing this proves that bayesian filters are causing them enough problems that they have to try a get round them. |
| Google toolbar popup blocker no longer working? | Fri 30 Jul | Roose |
| What happened, all of the sudden I keep getting all these popups? I tried installing it again, same behavior. Is it that the websites have found the holes in googles popup blocking code? Anyone else noticed this lately? Or maybe some spyware/malware has disabled it? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Ankur | It still mostly works for me. But yeah, some popups are getting through. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr Jack | I've had a similiar thing - they seem to open a small window for a brief moment which then opens the popup, or something. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bicuspix | Quit using IE - make the world a better place. |
| Fri 30 Jul | kc | Popups? What are those? Does the idea of having to install additional third party components to have a usable browser sound weird to anyone else? Brought to you by KC on Firefox 0.9.2 |
| Fri 30 Jul | Greg Hurlman | Like the battle against spam & viruses, it's an arms race. The popup bastards have made their move - now it's Google's turn. The popup blocker that comes with the latest version of MSIE2 (now called Maxthon it seems) works rather well - they've duplicated the functionality of IE6 + XPSP2's popup blocker/status bar. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Peter | Eventually, they are going to switch to "interstitials." Those are intermediate pages that are whole page adverts. You won't be able to get away from them. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Brad Wilson | 'You won't be able to get away from them.' You could stop visiting the sites that foist this shit on you. Just a thought. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Nathan | I'm on Firefox, and I occassionally get a popup window. Sometimes, if I click a link on Drudgereport, then hit back, a window will pop up. But since I block a bunch of adservers, the window has always been empty. |
| Fri 30 Jul | The Donger | 'You won't be able to get away from them.' 'You could stop visiting the sites that foist this shit on you. Just a thought.' Between Mozilla's built-in popup blocking and the Adblock extension, I rarely see any ads or popups that I don't want to see. If one does get through, I immediately look for contact information on that site and send them an e-mail letting them know that I will never visit their site again. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Eric V. | I've seen the same behavior with Google toolbar. A lot of popups come thru. What is worst than pop-ups are the transparency Macromedia Flash ads. I've uninstalled the Flash software because of this. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | Technically, those flash overlays aren't popups. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Brent | i think google only hooks into the onLoad event. now sites are popping up on other events (mouseMove, etc.) the next move would be for them to popup (more likely, under) anytime you click a link which would probably bypass most non-whitelist popup blockers. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Elephant | For those IE users, XP Service Pack 2 will provide pop-up supression when it is released shortly. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Iago | Flash ads rapidly cease to be annoying if you install the Flash Click to Play' extension (in Mozilla-based browsers, obviously - IE users are out of luck as usual). You'll never see a Flash animation again unless you *want* to. But because you haven't uninstalled Flash, you can still get at it if (for example) you need to browse a site where some silly designer has used it for navigation elements. Incidentally, this also blocks about half the 'interstitials' on sites which use them. The extra click becomes much less annoying when you don't have to look at a huge flashing ad while looking for the 'go to content' link. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Kyralessa | Iago, you can do the same thing in IE. Just enable prompt for ActiveX controls in the IE security settings, because Flash is an ActiveX control. Then you say 'yes' to run the Flash animation, or 'No' (the default) to refuse it. I will concede that it's not quite as convenient as a click-to-play button, but it does work. (It also keeps you from having to wait an hour for a PDF to load when you didn't know you were clicking on one.) |
| Array | Fri 30 Jul | Doha |
| I need an examples really exist of a three dimensional array storage device. |
| Fri 30 Jul | TheGeezer | Check out 'The Tardis'. It's multi-dimensional. http://www.geocities.com/~mjbrant/drwho/images/postcard1.jpg |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | How many bits is that? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Matthew Lock | I thought the inside of the Tardis wasn't in this dimension though, and so doesn't technically exist. |
| Fri 30 Jul | trollop | L- space. Ook. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr.Fancypants | Three dimesional arrays? Man, even thinking about that sort of stuff will blow your mind!!! |
| Fri 30 Jul | Steamrolla | Humm, all storage devices are physically three dimensional :) However, most are logically one-dimensional, so why don't you come up with a mapping? If you want a 3x3x3, your just going to get an array[27] anyway. You might as well just start that way. |
| Fri 30 Jul | i like i | People have difficulty visualising an array with more than three dimensions, apparently. Think of it as a tree is often more natural. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Kalani | >Think of it as a tree is often more natural. How do you mean that? I guess I don't see a good fit for a tree to an n-dimensional thing. I can see a graph used for that purpose (you can make n-dimensional objects out of graphs anyway), but not necessarily a tree. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Elephant | Technically a tree is just a specialized graph. But who wants to split hairs? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Not convinced | I have a weird way of imagining mega-multi-dimensional arrays: 1-dimensional: line --------------------- 2-dim: graph 3-dim: cube 4-dim: line of cubes 5-dim: graph of cubes 6-dim: cube made out of cubes 7-dim: line of 'cubes made out of cubes' ...and so on. |
| Fri 30 Jul | _ | I saw a picture of that in a textbook years ago and have been plagued with the same image... Seems to work though. |
| Fri 30 Jul | AllanL5 | 'Cube made out of Cubes..' -- Isn't that a 'tessaract'? (..And he built a crooked house. Heinlein.) (Also, A Wrinkle in Time. Madeline L'Engle) |
| Fri 30 Jul | John C. | not convinced: nice. I do the same thing, and almost started to try to explain it, but my explanation would've been about 10 times as verbose. Visualizing n-dim arrays is sure a heck of a lot easier than visualizing n-dim spaces. I remember having tried to take an arbitrarily-shaped (but simple) object and imagine rotating it through a fourth dimension -- had to stop before my brain exploded and made a big mess all over the room. Has anyone managed to think of a reasonable way to visualize n-dim objects that are not broken into finite, immobile chunks the way array slots are? |
| Fri 30 Jul | example | Doha - As you've probably figured out, this is not the place to be asking that sort of question. Try Google. John C. - I get to the 'cube of cubes' stage and can image the inner cubes rotating around each other. But beyond that, I totally lose it. Guess I'm just not cut out to be a Time Lord. ;-) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Jimmy Jo-Jo | www.timecube.com |
| Sat 31 Jul | Kalani | Elephant, but that's the point -- it's a more restrictive form of graph than is most obvious for the n-dimensional 'visualization'. By definition a tree can't contain cycles but, by definition, an n-dimensional space does have cycles. 1D is a graph like ('o' == node, '--' == edge): ... --o--o--o-- ... So in 1D, each node has degree 2. In 2D, each node has degree 4 (or 8 if you're into 2D cellular automata), and so on. You can use this method to construct the elements of any n-dimensional space (but the space has to be discrete, as somebody else mentioned). |
| Sat 31 Jul | Bob | I don't visualize arrays, I just see the dimensions as attributes: [city#][street#][street address][apartment wing#][floor#][room#] etc. There's six dimensions right there. |
| Sat 31 Jul | matt | About higher than 3 dimensions - a mathematician would probably tell you something along these lines: 'Visualising' higher-dimensional spaces in the conventional sense is hard/impossible for some - but if you think about them enough, about generalising various 2 or 3-dimensional problems to n dimensions, you end up looking past that and finding other ways of 'seeing' these spaces in a more abstract but equally valid way in your mind. In short, if you look beyond the need to visualise things and really get your head round the idea of n-dimensional contructs from a formal/abstract point of view, in time you'll find yourself visualising them in a sense, just not the way you would have expected. Visualising a 3-dim'l array should be a piece of piss though, just think about lots of little cubes arranged in a 3-dimensional grid. |
| Why you shouldn't start a blog | Thu 29 Jul | Doug |
| Because coders are bad writers. If they were any good, theyd be documenting their code. Weblogs.asp.net is a good example of too much bad writing in one place ;) Also, you tend to be giving away competitive information about your technology. You better believe your competition is reading your blog about the cool new whizzy feature you are adding and how you are doing it. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Edward | Maybe bad writers should be encouraged to start a blog. Nobody will read it, but the practise is good. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Code Monkey | >Because coders are bad writers Really? They do not seem to be bad at writing code! Infact most coders are good at structured thinking so yeah maybe they cannot write a romance novel but they sure can analyze an issue and write about it cogently without the 'what how I write rather than what I write' syndrome As any coder stupid enough to write about secrets derserves what comes to him. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Bored Bystander | I've been exhorted to start a blog, and I have received numerous strong suggestions from people on various places I've posted that I should write professionally. The real scoop is this: I like being semi-anonymous because I can say what I like and what I dislike. If I blogged about my real feelings about and experiences with certain people in this industry with whom I've dealt, I would be sued for libel, and would probably have my ass kicked or my house burnt down too. For instance, does anyone remember the British dude in 1999 who was going to fund the rescue of Mir, the Soviet space station? I *worked* for the guy in the mid 90s, a few years before the Mir thing. And he almost threatened to kill me because I was core to a project he was doing for one of his companies and he was concerned I was going to bail. Let's just say that I've had some interesting experiences in this field and I've known and had to deal with some exceptionally scummy people. Beside, I am always behind the knowledge curve, it seems. My prime time for blogging would have been 10 years ago when I had the passion to drive all of my many opinions on tech down the throat of anyone who was stupid enough to listen. Today I would simply be another of 10,000 or so geeks writing blogs competing for eyeballs. And I just can't get that worked up about software dev any more. Except when it hits me in the wallet. |
| Thu 29 Jul | no name | Because it will be boring and inane, just like all the other blogs out there. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Management Material | Dear Doug, I am a better writer than you and am also a software engineer. I know I'm a better writer than you because I'm published in national media (not for technology coverage) and I bet you're not. Lose the stereotypes Doug. |
| Thu 29 Jul | noman | Bored Bystander, not Doug, has the right reason for not writing a blog. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Yoda Coda | Hey, have a laugh: http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/2/171117/8823 In my view, coders represent a very wide cross section of people. Within that spectrum are some excellent writers. Saying coders should not blog is like saying red headed people should not try to dance. Follows not, it does, yes? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard | @Bored: So, did you bail or what? Story please! |
| Thu 29 Jul | Almost Anonymous | Bored: Post'm here... Philo isn't giving us anything juicy anymore... |
| Thu 29 Jul | Clutch Cargo | 'almost threatened to kill me'... How do you *almost* threaten someone? Is this like all those gorgeous models I've *almost* had sex with? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Doug | What are some nominations for the worst blog ever? |
| Thu 29 Jul | example | >> What are some nominations for the worst blog ever? << There were so many excellent nominees, the judges really had a tough time this year. They were all so worthy of winning, some of them obviously spent a lot of time on their blogs. The envelope please... And, the winner is: 'Anyone who describes the shape of something they found in their nose' !! |
| Fri 30 Jul | The Real API | I nominaste: http://www.wibsite.com/wiblog/dull/ |
| Fri 30 Jul | Greg Hurlman | What about us writers that code? After reading through the Kiro5hin article that was linked to above, I've also got to voice a complaint about of the the most common complaints I hear about blogs - 'Your blog is f'ing up Google!' Last I checked, it wasn't my or anyone else's responsibility to make sure one particular search engine worked correctly. In fact, Google's tweaking their Pagerank mecahanism constantly - they certainly could rank blogs right out of the picture if they wanted to. The key - yes, *the* key, not just *a* key - to finding exactly what you're looking for on Google is by elimination, not throwing darts. If you don't like blogs, just tack '-blog' or '-trackback' into your search - it'll work wonders. Of course, I'd wager 90% of the folks here already knew that, but I had to vent... maybe I should finally go get that coffee. |
| Fri 30 Jul | matt | What's the difference between weblogs.asp.net and blogs.msdn.net ? The latter has the less ugly design. |
| Sat 31 Jul | the coward | What Rory Blyth ( http://www.neopoleon.com/blog/) He is a coder |
| What's a good FREE FTP client? | Thu 29 Jul | Bella |
| Ive still been using WSFTP95_LE Cant seem to get it to xfer entire folders at a time. Figure might as well update to a newer FTP client anyways. Any reccs? Thanks |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Forbes | I've been very happy with SmartFTP. While it used to be "free and clear" for personal use, lately they've added some features that indicate a march towards an outright pay product - for instance your copy "expires" after X days, nagging you to upgrade (and invariably one of these days the upgrades will shoehorn in nagware/ads/whatever). The personal copy also pops up a diaog on startup if you run it between 9-5 (they're presuming you're using it for business purposes). |
| Thu 29 Jul | AllanL5 | I've been very happy with CuteFTP, and CuteFTP_Pro. They transfer entire subdirectory trees at a time, they can be customized for OpenVMS (IF that seems useful to you). The 'Pro' version has auto-synchronize features I've never used -- but I understand they are there. Oops, you did say free, didn't you. It's not expensive -- $50.00 or so. |
| Thu 29 Jul | AnonAnonAnon | Filezilla http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla |
| Thu 29 Jul | PopCulture | PuTTy!!! http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html |
| Thu 29 Jul | - former car owner in Queens | I've been using Leech FTP. No longer being developed, but still works fine for me (under NT). I got it from download.com, but the author's page is here http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~jdebis/leechftp/ |
| Thu 29 Jul | - former car owner in Queens | > under NT Correction: under Win2k |
| Thu 29 Jul | Captain McFly | I'll second SmartFTP. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Forbes | 'for instance your copy 'expires' after X days, nagging you to upgrade (and invariably one of these days the upgrades will shoehorn in nagware/ads/whatever).' I should clarify what I meant there - after X days SmartFTP feels that it is an outdated version, and prompts you to upgrade to the new _free_ version. I realize afterwards that it sounded I was saying that you are prompted to upgrade to the pay version, and that wasn't my intent. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Chris Tavares | +1 for FileZilla. |
| Thu 29 Jul | MacSqueeb | I just do ftp://ftp.someftphost.com in an Internet Explorer window and can do everything I need in a familiar interface that is availible on any Windows machine. Am I missing some features I should know about? |
| Thu 29 Jul | matt | Yeah, the FTP windows explorer extension comes as default with XP, I think it might need installing for Win2K from the microsoft site but I may be wrong. Certainly the easiest way of going about it, although it does that horrible windows explorer thing of freezing up if there are network problems. You could get to know command-line FTP... it's not hard... just open a command prompt and type ftp foo.com, help for help |
| Thu 29 Jul | saberworks | FileZilla++ for windows |
| Thu 29 Jul | - former car owner in Queens | > You could get to know command-line FTP But the OP said he wants to be able to transmit entire folders/directories... can you do this directly from an ftp command line under Windows? When doing this (sending entire directories) from a Unix command line I always have to monkey with tar or zip files to do this... is it (gasp) easier under Win? I have to say, much as I love my *nix command line, there are some instances where a GUI can't be beat, and I'd say a good FTP client is one of 'em... (specialized instance of a file manager, I guess) |
| Thu 29 Jul | kc | Filezilla all the way. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Xervanik | LEECH |
| Thu 29 Jul | Full name: | Ok, I'll bite....putty does FTP? I was under the impression you could only use putty to secure copy--pscp. Now, I'm all for using pscp to transfer files. It gives you end-to-end encryption, from the data to the passwords, which FTP transmits clear-text (is this still true?). However, using secure-copy means that someone has a ssh server. How do you set that up so no one can get a shell? Sure you can roll your own solution using chroot or jail (on *nix or maybe cgwin on windows), but if i remember the SSH protocol, SCP actually runs a shell command when it connects. So if you somehow prevent shell access completely you will break the file transfer. |
| Thu 29 Jul | RP | FileZilla |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dan G | Been a while since I tried, but 'mput' in ftp.exe (ie command line FTP) allows you to put multiple files, so you can do mput 'D:\Files\*.*'. This can possible solve the upload directory issue as I said, its been a while since I tried, so it may not work exactly like that In any case, when I have a choice I use FileZilla, but having ftp.exe is handy when you cant install stuff on the machine |
| Thu 29 Jul | Matthew Lock | WebDrive http://www.webdrive.com It's not free but it transparently maps an ftp site to a normal windows drive, like x: so you can use *any* windows or dos program at all. It allows you to edit a file in notepad or any program you like right on the server. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Philo | Dan, IIRC, mput asks for verification on each file (ick), and still doesn't solve the nested directories problem. For example, if you're deploying a website, that could be five or ten subdirectories and hundreds of files. The one thing CLI FTP does best is large files - I've had issues with every FTP client at one time or another with huge files (probably network problems, but they didn't fail gracefully); but the CLI FTP has never failed me. Philo |
| Thu 29 Jul | Wayne | LeechFTP++ |
| Fri 30 Jul | jdm | FTP Commander: http://www.internet-soft.com/ There's a freeware version (nag-free) and a Pro version for not very much--about $30, I think. The freeware version is just fine for my needs. |
| Fri 30 Jul | MacSqueeb | Philo, issue the command 'prompt' prior to doing an mput or mget to turn off prompting, IIRC. The CLI *is* a good ftp client, but there are different reasons for using each. Being able to ctrl-click specific files, or a combination of files and directories, or a select inverse is quite handy, and I would have to imagine kinda tricky to duplicate with mget/mput and trying to quickly come up with the right mask. Plus, does mget refuse to get directories recursively? I've never been able to get it to -- it always gets the files in directory, then I have to repeat mget /blah/* for each sub-directory. This is all from memory as I haven't used ftp.exe for a while and I'm up way past my bedtime. I'ma check out FileZilla. |
| Fri 30 Jul | tapiwa | Another vote for the command line FTP client. It is amazing how many company networks I have seen that block ftp access (no installed clients, & no ftp from web browser), but leave the DOS ftp unblocked. the way to start it is ftp -i ftp.foo.bar.com with the -i switch, you do not get prompted when you do an mput or mget. Another useful tip is to use Hash - display hash symbols as it transfers Bell - beep when job done Bin - change transfer format to binary |
| Fri 30 Jul | Rodrigo Strauss | CoreFTP: http://www.coreftp.com/ |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bella | Ok, I'll try fileZilla. Thanks By the way, IS there a cmdline way to mput recursive subdirectories?? like mput -r * ? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Flasher T | One more vote for the command line ftp. Good to know if you're working with a lot of different PCs, I have yet to encounter a Win machine where it would not be available. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Bella | FileZilla meeting all my needs. (Free and does folder xfers) Thanks. For those that posted pay apps, please learn to read. |
| Sat 31 Jul | the coward | Been using Smart FTP for a while, but the messages is annoying Now I use NCFTP for Windows, which is great. I am a sucker for comandlines http://www.ncftp.com/download/ Just do: put -rf * I think you can use Zip with it to, love it! |
| How far can an MCSE in SQL Server take me? | Thu 29 Jul | Jade |
| Hi guys, Im thinking of updating my database skills. So I was thinking of doing an MCSE in SQL Server. What I want to ask, especially those living in Australia, will having this certificate help me a great deal? And what about oracle dba?, does it fair better then sql server on the market?. I really need alot of advice on this so I can get a clearer picture of where Im heading. Thankyou in advance.. |
| Thu 29 Jul | RP | Aren't you talking about an MCDBA certification? |
| Thu 29 Jul | no name | It'll probably get you a terrific code monkey job in Australia. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Jade | sorry, thats what i meant. MCDBA! :) |
| Thu 29 Jul | . | Do you have any work experience in SQL Server? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Jade | Unfortunately no, I'm very well versed in access, also I'm a recent I.T. graduate. |
| Thu 29 Jul | noman | From my experience, hiring managers view practical knowledge more valuable than certifications. In fact, some people think too many certs are suspicious. The Microsoft certification is particualrly notorious b/c, rightly or wrongly, it comes with the perception that the holder is a lightweight. SQL Server may be popular in NT environments, but as far as databases go, it's hardly an industry leader. If you want to work in the database domain, see if you can get a job with Oracle. That would give you exposure to all types of db applicatiosn and environments. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Forbes | 'The Microsoft certification is particualrly notorious b/c, rightly or wrongly, it comes with the perception that the holder is a lightweight.' It has the impression of being lightweight when people with otherwise no credentials or experience believe that it makes them heavyweight. For some these certifications were seen as a 'make money fast' route into the exciting career of IT. In other words if you have no specific training or experience, at best these certificates will get a tiny leg up into a very junior position. If you're experienced/specially trained, though, the certificates are just a basic sign of job professionalism. 'SQL Server may be popular in NT environments, but as far as databases go, it's hardly an industry leader.' You're right - DB2 is the market leader. DB2 has some 33% of the market, Oracle has 32%, and SQL Server has ~20%. |
| Thu 29 Jul | BW | Try to research in your local area whether there's more of a market for SQL Server skills or Oracle. MS certifications aren't highly valued in part because so many people cheat on them. But I think there are still two good reasons to get certified if you are low on experience: you can learn a lot while studying, and some hiring managers and HR personnel (ie non-technical decision makers) are unduly impressed by certifications. Better yet, scrounge for some experience. Build a database for your Aunt May to help organize her Hummel collection: not only will you gain experience, you can call it 'consulting' on your resume. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Jade | this is all very interesting, but from experience, which is more difficult to master, sql server or oracle? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Forbes | Does that bridge provide good cover from the rain? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Jade | Oracle is sooo expensive to learn, it cost something like 12k aussie dollars to do the course. |
| Thu 29 Jul | AllanL5 | In my experience, Oracle pulls the bucks. Sybase runs a distant second. SQL Server is for running a web-site on a Windows box under IIS for newbies who don't know any better. Scalability becomes a problem down the road. Note these are not really MY opinions. I think Access has enough horsepower for most small applications, MySQL works really well in the mid-range (less than a million records, less than 10,000 accesses). I've never seen an MCSE certification requested on the jobs I've applied for. I have been asked for Oracle and Sybase experience. I have also seen Oracle trained newbies get positions. Most Oracle training is designed for companies to send their already employed people. I admit it sucks for an individual trying to 'break-in'. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Forbes | 'SQL Server is for running a web-site on a Windows box under IIS for newbies who don't know any better. Scalability becomes a problem down the road.' 1999 called - they want their dated anti-SQL Server argument back. :-) Nowadays you can run SQL Server on single system boxes that rival the largest mainframes, and of course you've been able to horizontally partition for years. You are entirely correct that for Microsoft shops developing with Microsoft technologies, SQL Server just happens to be a very tight fit, so even where as an RDBMS Oracle would be a slightly better choice from a DB only perspective, SQL Server often comes ahead when considered in an integrated environment. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Sgt. Sausage | ==> 'Scalability becomes a problem down the road.' What world are you living in? My largest DB at a customer site has tables with multiple hundreds of millions of rows. We're in the terabyte range with this one. Performance is awesome. Subsecond responses on queries joining a dozen or more of these tables together. Hundreds of concurrent queries running regularly, and at times, thousands. There's over 4,000 users in this thing, heads down all day. It runs 24/7 without a hitch. Your argument was valid in the days of SQL 6.5 and prior (what, about 1997?), but at least since the release of SQL Server 7.0, you're making a bogus argument. Scalability becomes a problem, only if you keep the darned thing running on your desktop machine. Otherwise, MS SQL Server can keep up with the best of 'em, and costs far less to boot. Try this on for scalability: http://www.tpc.org/results/FDR/TPCC/hp_superdome_win64_030828.pdf Enjoy! |
| Fri 30 Jul | ko | Jade, Firstly as a disclaimer, I work in a Oracle shop with some small SQL Server databases used mainly for web db's so the majority of my experience is with Oracle. I've completed both the Oracle DBA course through Oracle Education and the SQL Server DBA course through Dimension Data, both in Brissie. DBA: I find the tools for SQL Server friendlier to use mainly because I actually do so little with SQL Server. I find the tools for Oracle harder to use in comparison, but find it much much easier to generate scripts in Oracle. One of the reasons is I prefer to use SQL in Oracle to do things like this: 'create table ' || table_name || '...' from dba_tables where owner = 'SYS' over using a stored procedure in SQL Server. As a developer, i've found Oracle to be more logical and more consistent in the whole experience. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Formerly someone else | Sausage, please tell me what hardware you are running on. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Stephen Jones | Take the course. SQL server was, and I think still is, a lot cheaper to buy and run than Oracle, and will do fine for nearly anything. Also you can use Access to develop for it (though you can do that with Oracle under Windows as well). |
| Probability question... | Wed 28 Jul | tim |
| We have a certain system evolving at work, and Ive noticed some patterns occurring. Im wondering if anyone can tell me the probabilities associated here. Lets say youre flipping a coin 10 times. What is the probability of getting heads exactly 4 times in a row? More than 4 times? That question I can manage (with some effort). Now, what if I tell you that out of those 10 trials it comes up heads exactly 5 times, and tails the other 5 times? What now? If youre going to get 5 heads coming up, what are the odds of getting 4 in a row? With these small trials, I could just count the total number of solutions, but Im more interested in the calculations here. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Bob | Uhhh... were you awake during 7th grade math? |
| Thu 29 Jul | The tail of the "g" in "fog creek software" | You've 'noticed some patterns' in a 'system evolving at work'? Sorry, Tim, but this really smells like a homework question. I can't think of many instances where the scenario you described would provide any useful information, let alone in such a way that you'd prefer to have the calculations involved rather than just the answer. |
| Thu 29 Jul | www.marktaw.com | 'We have a certain system evolving at work, and I've noticed some patterns occurring.' The pattern is you keep losing in the office 'who can flip 5 heads in a row' contest? |
| Thu 29 Jul | a2800276 | >Now, what if I tell you that out of those 10 trials it comes up heads >exactly 5 times, and tails the other 5 times? >What now? If you're going to get 5 heads coming up, what are the >odds of getting 4 in a row? So, you know for sure that out of 10 tosses, you'll definately get 5 heads? First throw, all is the same, but on consecutive throws, it depends what the previous results were. Say you only have 4 throws left and have only had heads once, the odds of getting four in a row are 1. -tim |
| Thu 29 Jul | a2800276 | > I could just count the total number of solutions You do have to 'count' the number of solutions to get the odds... Normally you know the chances of getting heads are 0.5, so the odds of getting heads 4 times in a row are 0.5^4. Now: after the first toss of the coin, depending on whether you got heads or tails, the odds of getting heads increases or diminishes. 1st throw: 5/10 -> 0.5 2nd (first was heads): 4/9 -> 0.444.. (you'll definately get 4 'heads' in the next 9 throws) 2nd (first was tails): 5/9 -> 0.555.. But, since the odds are always changing, you can't just say the chance of getting 4 in a row are (odds^4). Continuing the example above: if you get head the second throw, the chances for the 3rd are 3/8 and then 2/7. So the odds of getting four in a row starting from the first toss are: 1/2 * 4/9 * 3/8 * 2/7 = 24/1008 = 0.0238... instead of 1/2 ^ 4 = 0.0625 for a normal coin toss. The current and subsequent odds in your case depend on the number of heads that have already come up, and how many throws you have left. All of this, provided a proper distribution within your 10 tries (which is unlikely in your model where you'll definately get 5 heads in 10 throws). -tim |
| Thu 29 Jul | no name | > what if I tell you that out of those 10 > trials it comes up heads exactly 5 times, > and tails the other 5 times? > > What now? You just created a bunch of new Universes, why not go play with one of them? |
| Thu 29 Jul | tim | Obviously my work doesn't involve flipping coins, but it seemed an easier way of explaining the situation than going into the details of the wireless network handshaking protocols. Sorry I asked. |
| Thu 29 Jul | matt | For the first question, it's just a matter of counting, although there's tricks you can use to make that easier. I can't immediately think of a nice formula (although I expect if you look in a combinatorics textbook you may find some suitable generalisation), so you'll have to do it by cases and think hard to make sure you're never counting the same combination twice. The second part what you're asking for is a conditional probability. Google on that phrase, there's an easy way of calculating these. |
| Thu 29 Jul | matt | Ah yes, a2800276's approach is good, conditioning on outcome the first toss. This could give you a recurrence relation to solve for some sort of formula (although if you just want the answer to this particular case may aswell just count) Actually, given this is a programmer's forum not a mathematician's one - just write a 10-line bloody python script to calculate this by brute force! It's not gonna take long, there are only 1024 cases. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Tom H | 'Actually, given this is a programmer's forum not a mathematician's one' But it is a pretty good example of why a Comp. Sci. major is expected to take a number of distribution courses, including calculus and statistics. You never know when a problem like this will pop up Admittedly this is not a college level math problem, but it makes sense that the OP wants to know if what he's observing is random or not. |
| Thu 29 Jul | anon | >> 'Actually, given this is a programmer's forum not a mathematician's one' What a dumbass. This is why I think no one should be permitted to get any where near production code until s/he's earned a BS in Math. |
| Thu 29 Jul | matt | Actually I just saw the bit where he was asking for enlightenment about the calculations. Fair enough. I'm actually a mathematician of sorts... so should (in theory) be able to do this standing on my head. I'm working on it ;-) (A neat formula that is, for any values in place of '4' and '10' in this case) |
| Thu 29 Jul | matt | I have a fricking BS in Maths! and will have a masters in another year. I was just saying that if you want an immediate answer to that particular problem, and given the tools/skills available to you, brute force would be the way to go. Looks like I didn't read to OP carefully enough though |
| Thu 29 Jul | This is why I am not a mathematician | 4 heads in a row out of 10 flips 50 % chance on each flip 4 * 50 / 10 = 20% 5 heads in a row out of 10 flips 50 % chance on each flip 5 * 50 / 10 = 25% ............... |
| Thu 29 Jul | matt | Aha! as I suspected after playing around with it for a bit, finding a closed form for this isn't easy. See this: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Run.html If you're interested in the maths behind it - there's a rather horrific-looking but cool generating function whose coefficients will give you the answers, but no simple formula valid for all r and n (in their terminology). Appears to be a neat formula for runs of length two though, involving Fibonacci coefficients. If you're interested in the asymptotic behaviour of the function (ie what happens to the probabilities as the numbers get large) this should be easy to approximate, and if you need to calculate the function accurately I'd suggest using one of the recurrence relations given on the above page and coming up with a recursive algorithm. |
| Thu 29 Jul | tim | Thanks a bunch Matt. I'll have a look at that. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Danil | http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471257087/qid=1086006247/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-8744697-3422511?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications, Volume 1, by William Feller. I've gotten a surprising amount of mileage out of this book in the 8 or 9 months since I bought it. But admittedly Wolfram is often a good choice, and at a much better price point. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Danil | Sidebar - is anybody else amused by the notion that "staying awake in 7th grade math" would enlighten one about processes involving Fibonacci k-step numbers and the Euler-Mascheroni constant? |
| Thu 29 Jul | matt | Yeah wolfram is great for reference - trying to actually learn new material from it would be pretty damn hard though. It's just a good summary of mathematical results and definitions |
| Thu 29 Jul | Bob | Danil, what part of "what are the odds of getting 4 in a row?" involves "Fibonacci k-step numbers" [sic]? |
| Thu 29 Jul | AllanL5 | The OP's question comes very close to the gambler's fallacy. If you are flipping a coin, that has a 50% chance of heads or tails, then each trial (each flip) is completely independent of the others. If it has come up heads 4 times in a row, the next flip (IF it is a fair coin, of course) has a 50% chance of coming up heads. Each trial tells you NOTHING about the following trials. The gambler's flaw says that if it has come up heads 4 times in a row, then it should be more likely that the next flip will come up heads. This is incorrect, unless there is something influencing the fall of the coin. It is very human to want to apply some pattern to an already occurred set of random events, and then expect that pattern to extend into the future. This is why programs to predict lottery numbers are popular. But it is not true. In communication networks, on the other hand, the volume and speed, and number of nodes wanting to talk, can heavily influence the throughput of the network. Just make sure you don't use the gambler's fallacy to predict performance. |
| Thu 29 Jul | tim | Agreed Allan, but I don't think that applies here. Each new flip of the coin depends heavily on previous flips. A better example is probably a bag containing 10 marbles: 5 black, and 5 white. Pulling out one marble at a time, what are the odds of pulling out 4 in a row of the same colour? |
| Thu 29 Jul | AllanL5 | The first marble has 5/10 chance of being white. The next 4/10, then 3/10, then 2/10. Multiply these together, you get .012. So you have a 1.2% chance of 4 marbles in a row for the condition of it being the first 4 marbles. Now do the condition of pulling one black, then the 4 white. Then the condition of two black, then 4 white. Hmm, this problem does get complex, doesn't it? I agree with an earlier poster. Enumerate it in a program. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dino | Probability to get heads is 1/2. Probability to get heads 4 times in a row = 1/2^4. Probability to get 4 in a row in a sequence of 10 is 7 x 1/2^4 = 7/16 (if you didn't hit 4 in a row to the 7th try then you missed - ie you have 7 trys to get 4 in a row) Again 7/16 |
| Thu 29 Jul | Edward | So the probability of getting 6 in a row is 7 * 1/2^6 = 7/64? This problem is more difficult than that. Out of ten flips, exactly 5 are heads, and 5 are tails. It's not a trivial problem. |
| Thu 29 Jul | matt | What we're saying is - the general case is a fairly hard problem in combinatorics / number theory. Solving a particular case will just involve doing some fairly ugly/boring calculations, and for what it's worth you may aswell just brute-force it, but the general case is certainly non-trivial |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dino | The probability to get 6 in a row out of 10 is 5 x 1/2^6 = 5/64 since you have only 5 tries for the sequence. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dino | Oh, and out of 10 flips you'll get any combination of heads and tails which is physically possible. It is random after all. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | May I switch to meta issues? This is an interesting thread. The problem is certainly nontrivial and to anyone who has dealt with serial transmission of binary data, is instantly recognizable. So we see people who, to put it kindly, clearly don't have much experience with or knowledge of serious computer science, or probability issues, smacking down the posters with remarks about the odds of getting heads are1/2 and how it is 7th grade math, how the OP knows nothing of computer science, how a degree in math should be required for CS. Yet these people making such comments clearly have very little understanding of the subjects they are proclaiming themselves experts in. At this point it is a question of social dynamics and psychological issues. The detractors do not understand a problem even at its most basic level. They are theratened by this, So in their minds they make themselves experts and start shouting down others with their trite and incorrect answers. It's really fascinating. It's like politics - people who know nothing at all about the situation in iraq are experts and are second guessing every decision! First we should not be in Fallujah at all and our army has no business in iraq, then when we pull out, we have done so too early and are betraying the iraqis to whom we have a responsibility to support with our army! Both these claims from the same journalists! Likewise, very thickheaded and ignorart people who have no idea about chemistry or physics are claiming that in the future all electricity will be generated by hydrogen fuel cell or solar panels! Anyway, how I solve these sorts of problems is I work out the first few terms using brute force. Then, I go to the encyclopedia of integer sequences, which will list a few sequences that start with those numbers. That gives me tips as to the theory I need to look in to to continue. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dino | Hasty, hasty, hast .... You were right - I made a mistake P(A U B) = P(A) + P(B) only if A and B are mutually exclusive. Otherwise P(A U B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A & B). For a coin flip P(A U A) = 1/2 + 1/2 - 1/2 * 1/2 = 3/4 Then for our case: P = 7 * 1/2^4 - 21 * 1/2^8 - 35 * 1/2 ^12 - 35 * 1/2^16 - 21 * 1/2^20 - 7 * 1/2^24 - 1/2^28 = 0.34636932238936424... Indeed getting the general expression is a more complicatied thing. I wonder if this is a random real or not ... hmm |
| Thu 29 Jul | tim | Dennis, it's only interesting if you're not interested in getting an answer ;-) If I may put myself in your shoes, I find it fascinating that these same people usually post anonymously (as if we're all not doing that). Why would I care what someone calling themselves 'Bob' thinks of my question? Does he/she care what other 'Bobs' post about them? I dunno. Anyways, it was just something that I was curious about. I see that the math is a little more than I can digest in a short while, so it'll be put aside for the moment. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dino | n in a row out of m tries:
p = 1/2^n
m-n-1 m-n-2 i |
| Thu 29 Jul | Tom | But I think you are ignoring the bag-like nature of the thing. Once you've pulled an item of a particular type out, the probability of getting another of that type is reduced, because there are fewer left. For the original question, I think the probability of 4 in a row is 36/252. The general case is not obvious to me. But it is like you have an N-bit value, and how many of those have exactly M bits set, and how many of those have K contiguous bits set? I can't work this out. My maths is too weak! But I think once you know this, you can work out the probability: The bottom number is how many N-bit values have exactly M bits set, for obvious reasons. The top number is a product of two other values. The first is N-(K-1), as there are N-(K-1) places where K contiguous bits could start. The second is how many N-(K-1)-bit values have exactly (M-K) bits set. (Because, I think, you have (M-K) bits 'left over' that you know will appear, and N-(K-1) bit positions that these have to go in... somewhere). |
| Thu 29 Jul | Tom | (As in, I can't work out how many N-bit values have exactly M bits set, contiguous or otherwise.) |
| Thu 29 Jul | Tom | Actually, I think I am wrong. Certain positions of the 'left over' bits will put a contiguous set somewhere other than where you first thought of (as it were). So it isn't quite that simple. But 36/252 was worked out by brute force, as a first step to see if I could work this out, so I think that is right :) |
| Thu 29 Jul | Danil | Continuing the meta thread 'The detractors do not understand a problem even at its most basic level. They are theratened by this' No, I don't think this fits. There's a step missing, I think. The detractors aren't reacting to this problem, but reacting to some other problem that is superficially similar. That is, had the original question been superficially similar to some other problem of reasonable interest and on topic, I think we would have seen a relatively civil set of completely useless answers. In other words, I think what we see here is different from what we see in the case of the Monty Hall problem (where people understand the question just fine, but don't understand the answer before they have become invested in their position). |
| Thu 29 Jul | Danil | Tom, the key phrase in looking up solutions for bags of marbles is 'without replacement'. But you've got the right idea. If there are N white marbles and M black marbles, there are (N+M)!/(N!M!) different ways to pull them out of the bag. That's the denominator The numerator can be a real pain, especially when K < M/2, so you have to start making sure that the remaining marbles don't make a longer streak than the one you are looking at. (For example, consider the cases where K=1). |
| Thu 29 Jul | tim | I don't know which feeling is stronger. The relief that I'm not a complete idiot after all, or the frustration in that there's no easy answer. ;-) |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dino | Quickly ... I hope I don't make too many mistakes .... :-) here is how you get the probabiliy for: Pk(A) = P(A U A U A .... U A) k times k1 k2 k3 k4 k5 k6 k7 k8 .... 1 2 -1 3 -3 -1 4 -6 -4 -1 5 -10 -10 -5 -1 6 -15 -20 -15 -6 -1 7 -21 -35 -35 -21 -7 -1 8 -28 -56 -70 -56 -28 -8 -1 9 ... Pk(A) = Sum(ki * p^i) for p = P(A) and i = 1 to k For a 4 coin flip p = 1/2^4 |
| Thu 29 Jul | MilesArcher | The real world is seldom really random. Are you sure there isn't some bias in your results or is it really just coin flipping? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | OK, 'Let's say you're flipping a coin 10 times. What is the probability of getting heads exactly 4 times in a row?' Exactly, so not 5 or 6. Also, there's not enough total to have two sets of4, since the exactly means we are looking for the sequence 011110 in a 10 bit sequence. That leaves 4 bits which can be any value. Therefore there are 16 ways to get this among 2^10=1024 possibilities. Probability of the sequence: 16/1024. Now if we constrain to 5 of 10 must be 1 and 5 0, and we have 011110, there are 4 bits remaining but only one may be 1. Therefore there are only 4 possibilities, for odds of 4/1024. That is the answer to your question. Extracting a formula for cases with longer sequences or different total #s etc is trivial to extend from my example. This sort of consulting I don't give away for free to firms. Therefore I ask that you donate $500 to either the American Cancer Society, or Ronald McDonald House. Thanks. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | My math is screwy - I didn't consider that the sequence can be in different positions as well, or that if it is on the edge of the sequence, there is an implied 0 on one side and we are dealing with 5 variable bits. That's why brute force is the answer - spew them out and count them. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Danil, I agree with your comments on the meta thread. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | But the thing on the superficially similar problem is that coin toss probability is what most people are familiar with from high school. Probability is really really difficult - harder than calculus. The reason is precisely this - it is very easy to follow the wrong line of reasoning and have it look correct. It is extremely hard to get the right odds unless you do brute force or empirical measurements to know in advance what the right answer is. However, I do know that the guys talking about 1/2 chance of heads haven't taken or didn't do well at combinatorics, which you would as a junior in any CS program. If you've taken combinatorics (or had to deal with serial data, encoding, error correction...) then you'd know enough to skip the whole 50% line of reasoning and start trying to count all the ways the thing you're looking for can happen. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Damn, what about: 1111001111 1111011110 0111101111 You CAN have two sets of four in a row. Are these allowed? Not specified in problem... |
| Thu 29 Jul | tim | Dennis, for this problem I'm limited to an equal number of 1's and 0's (or black and white marbles). Thus, no double sets of sequential 4's (with ten flips) However, in the general problem I'm looking at, a more accurate simplification would have 20 coin-flips, and we're still looking for 4 in-a-row. Then indeed we could have two sets of 4's. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | OK, well here are your cases: A. 11110nnnnn B. 011110nnnn C. n011110nnn D. nn011110nn E. same as C, reversed F. same as B, reversed G. same as A, reversed The n's are comprised of one 1, the rest 0s. So 5 possibilities for A, 4 for B, C and D. 5+4+4+4+4+4+5 = 30 possibilties total. Odds then are 30/1024. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | For 20 bits with 10 1 and 10 0, so you can have 2 chains of 4 and they can straddle the middle, it's not then a case of extrapolating from these results. I advise you to count from 0 to 2^20 and check which ones have a chain of exactly 4 1s in a row and just pritn the total or print out the numbers. That's the fastest way since when you do it by hand it seems you always miss some. If had to to 70 bits in a row or something where its not reasonable to calculate with brute force, then you'd do more thinking. So, have you written this script Tim? Go ahead and do so and then post your results. |
| Thu 29 Jul | tim | Yep, I'm just in the middle of it now. I'm stuck on some time-optimization stuff, but hoping to get it done soon. If it'll start soon, I'll send it spinning overnight, and hopefully have something for tomorrow. |
| Thu 29 Jul | tim | Some might find this interesting...it's been dumbed down a little, but kind of neat http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/activities/marbles/index.html |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Let me know if you get 48025. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Which would be 4.58% of the cases. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Atkins | BTW, use C - it runs here in just a few milliseconds. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Heh, I left out a few, it's actually 52,580 cases or 5.01442% of all possibilities. Do you get the same? |
| Fri 30 Jul | tim | Work exploded here. I'll post results ASAP. |
| Fri 30 Jul | J. Lee | This looks like a case where using resampling would be the way to figure out your answer. It eliminates the problem of picking the correct statistical formula, along with that formula's hidden assumptions. I know Julian Simon wrote a couple of books on the subject. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bella | The OP was talking about Bernoulli's Binomail Probabiliites n= # of trials r = # of desired successes p = probability of success q = probability of failure P(EXACTLY r times) = (nCr)(p^r)(q^(n-r)) P(AT LEAST r times) = P(EXACTLY r) + P(EXACTLY r+1) + ... + P(EXACTLY n) |
| Fri 30 Jul | matt | Okay, I decided to try writing a little algorithm to calculate these numbers of runs recursively. Make of it what you will: # Calculates the number of possible binary sequences of length n # which contain a 'run' of /at least/ k 1's. # Works recursively using a simple recurrence relation - algorithmic # complexity could doubtless be improved a lot def runs(k, n): if k > n or n == 0: return 0 return sum([runs(k, i) for i in range(n-k, n)]) + (1 << (n-k)) # Caclulates the number of possible binary sequences of length n # which contain a run of length k (but no longer runs) def runsofexactly(k, n): return runs(k, n) - runs(k+1, n) print 'Runs of at least 4 in 10: %d\nRuns of exactly 4 in 10: %d' \ % (runs(4,10), runsofexactly(4,10)) This outputs: Runs of at least 4 in 10: 251 Runs of exactly 4 in 10: 139 I think it's correct - it comes out with the right answers for small numbers - but I may be missing an obvious flaw. |
| Fri 30 Jul | matt | If you're interested in my mathematical justification for that algorithm by the way, just ask :-) I'm working on a similar algorithm for the case when you know the exact amounts of 0s and 1s in the sequence now... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dino | The probability to NOT get k heads sequence in a n toss is: k P = F / n^2 n+2 where F is the fibonacci number of step k. For k=4 n=10 P = 773/1024 Then 1- P = 251/1024 is the probability of getting AT LEAST 4 heads sequence in a 10 toss. For more: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/CoinTossing.html |
| Sat 31 Jul | Dennis "Dumbass Patsy Fool" Atkins | I guess Tim was a student scamming for homework answers. And one who can't even program. I was such a fool! When will I learn? |
| Publishing a book: Un parcours du combattant?? | Tue 27 Jul | InZeBemi |
| Hi joel, I just finished a book and i would like to publish it. I would like to know what i have to do apart from scouting for an publisher; i am specifically worried about the legal aspect of it like protecting the book against copying before it is published. How did you go about it? |
| Tue 27 Jul | Wilder | Do like Joel : Publish it on the net, build a community, then sell it to Oreilly or Wrox |
| Tue 27 Jul | old_timer | That's not how publishers operate. They don't want to see finished manuscripts. There's too great a chance that you plagerized parts or got many of your facts wrong. What they want is to get an outline and synopsis first. If that strikes their fancy, they will either contract with you to start writing it or just plain steal the idea and hand it over to someone else already on contract. Unfortunately, this is not a rare occurance in the industry. If you are going to write it you'll be turned over to an editor who will want it one section at a time. He/she will do fact checking for accuracy and literature searches to assure originality. You'll get a schedule for when to deliver each section and often to more than one reader/checker. When the final manuscript is accepted it will be taken from the editor, put in queue for production and turned over to a publisher who must formulate a marketing/advertising plan. Even then there is no guarrantee they'll go to print if their market studies indicate the potential sales will not cover publication costs. At that point your book may be in limbo. Not quite dead but not going anywhere either and they own the copyright (you signed that away in the first contract) so you can't get it out either. It takes months even if you think you are ready right now. |
| Tue 27 Jul | - former car owner in Queens | http://philip.greenspun.com/wtr/dead-trees/story |
| Tue 27 Jul | Eric Debois | You might want to try a print on demand/ self publishing house. They wont do much promotion for your book, but generally they can make it available in stores all over the world including amazon and such. Youll be left with the task of getting the word out though. |
| Tue 27 Jul | InZeBemi | Thanx guys, i read through your comments, but it seems like you are seeing it from an american perspective. Would it be the same from a british perpective: I am actually planning to get the book published in the UK. And i am french, please don't shoot me!! |
| Wed 28 Jul | Stephen Jones | Are you under 30? Do you have good teeth - better hair? A sexy accent? Were you raped as a kid by your maternal and paternal grandparents? All of these will greatly improve your chance of getting published. If you have only a sub-set of them consider sending the book to an agent. |
| Wed 28 Jul | tapiwa | What's the genre? I met a publisher not too long ago at a social engagement in London. drop me an email and I will put you in touch with him. |
| Wed 28 Jul | InZeBemi | It is a fiction story. It's the story of a gifter programmer, who finds himself hired in an ISV in a third world country. It's about deceit, loads of corruption, sex and drug, as well as financial mal-practices in the company. I am in paris now, going back to london on thursday 29th. I would be great to hear from you and your friend! |
| Fri 30 Jul | InZeBemi | And by the way, i am french, and a 'funny' accent when speaking english or spanish. No rape, nobody abusing me and i am cute (all my girlfriends told me!), authoritative (almost dictatorial), and smart. I am short though (5'7''), that may explain the dictatorial thing mentioned earlier! |
| Fri 30 Jul | Jack | You don't think that mentioning that it was a FICTION book was relevant in the OP? :) Any advice above on tech books isn't going to help. I'd start by reading, for instance: http://www.sfwa.org to get a general idea of publishing a novel. Then look for some UK-specific resources. Finally, kudos to you for having written it. It's a great achievement. |
| Sat 31 Jul | Jack V. | (BTW: That last comment was from me. I didn't realise there was another Jack.) Oh, finally, in answer to your specific question. Everyone I've heard the advice of has said theres zero chance of a fiction book being stolen. |
| PHP setLocale() and localeconv() | Fri 30 Jul | Gabriel Landau |
| Problem: setlocale(LC_ALL,en_US); $locale_info = localeconv(); echo Length: . strlen($locale_info[currency_symbol]); ends up printing Length: 0 Anyone have any ideas why? Thanks in advance, Gabe |
| Fri 30 Jul | Almost Anonymous | Do a: var_dump($locale_info); and see what it says. |
| What are the best dev forums? | Fri 30 Jul | Doug |
| Other than this one. Ie, places where youve got to have a few years development experience, and most of the discussions arent anti-MS or pro-MS or whatever. They are just about the technology. Ideas? |
| Fri 30 Jul | a programmer | CodeProject!! www.codeproject.com Antoher up-and-coming one is RealDevs: www.realdevs.net .. although it is in its infancy right now. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard | You fucking ass-monkey, those are all MS sponsored sites! Get a clue... |
| Fri 30 Jul | example | www.Tek-Tips.com |
| Fri 30 Jul | bashful | Artima has some interesting discussions. |
| Fri 30 Jul | John Rusk | My top two sites are this one (Joel's) and http://blogs.msdn.com/ericgu/ (It's a MS blog, but free of the 'language wars' you hoping to avoid.). |
| Nanosys - Forget Google | Fri 30 Jul | Yo |
| How about investing here, Nanosys? (cnnfn article) http://tinyurl.com/5feb3 Is this the next .com ? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Warren | Alan Greenspan gives me an irrational exuberance in my pants! |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.marktaw.com | TiinyURL has it's place where URL's wrap, but long URL's work here. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Warren | In all seriousness, I don't know if the economy is ready for nanotech. It'd be a shame if investors thought nanotech was useless just because a few dumb companies flopped. If they weren't so god damned greedy they could be a lot better off. |
| Fri 30 Jul | MilesArcher | I have not seen anyone have anything remotely resembling a product using nanotech. You guys can buy stock in the pioneer, i'm going to wait for the second company in that takes the ideas from the first wave, exectutes them into products and does an effective job at marketing. CF Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Genetech, Google the list goes on and on. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Brad Wilson | And it's not even long. http://money.cnn.com/2004/07/29/technology/techinvestor/lamonica/index.htm |
| Fri 30 Jul | Yo | re: tinyurl - whatever.... nanotech examples: well i've seen carbon tube video displays, so there is at least one product. A small biotech company had a similar IPO many years back, now its a multi-billion dollar company. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Yo | "small biotech company" = Genetech |
| Fri 30 Jul | Yo | Of course you know what is going to happen don't you? The same thing when Clinton got elected. 1992 A new, revolutionary, technology is introduced. Many small companies caught the wave. IPO's left and right. Gov't looking the other way while companies and VCs cooked the books. A booming economy (based on corporate lies). Then finally the light is seen and crash, bam, boom; the whole thing goes to crap. But look at all that happened (low unemployment, low or no deficit, blah blah blah) all because of wild Bill and Shrillery, not to mention Monica. Now its 2004 Without this type of _non governmental_ innovation. The 2 Johns will not get anything done on thier socialist wish-list. They need something like nanotech takes the spot light off of them, then they can sit back and take the credit. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr.Fancypants | Nanotech is going to be like "AI" in the 80s. A lot of talk, and a lot of capital raised but in the end mostly a big bust (for now). |
| Fri 30 Jul | Tom H | 'Nanotech is going to be like 'AI' in the 80s' Of course you could say the same thing about AI in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 90s. But I expect nanotech will be more like biotech was in the 90s. Lots of people speculating, a few big companies getting the patents and bringing products to market, then it becomes a mature technology and the prognosticators find some other future to predict (or go back to predicting how AI is about to take off). |
| d3fc0n | Fri 30 Jul | JJ |
| Has anyone on this board ever been to DefCon? Its like a big hackers convention (IMO more like a crackers convention). People setup a big network and try to hack into other peoples machines. The feds usually have a guy there to see whats new. Ive never been, though I have been invited by friends who went. Never had the inclination to go. (That was a couple years ago though when it first started. I hear its gotten a lot better.) |
| Fri 30 Jul | grunt | You should get some new friends and get yourself invited to fashion shows and new bar openings! You'd be suprised how much fun it can be. ;) |
| cmd.exe: net ?? and detecting started services | Fri 30 Jul | Conservare in un luogo asciutto e fresco, al riparo dal sole. |
| Hello
Recently, I discovered that on Windows cmd.exe one can start and stop a service with a
net start |
| Fri 30 Jul | KayJay | Tasklist/? should help you. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Greg Hurlman | 'net start' will display all currently running services. |
| Fri 30 Jul | el | > Conservare in un luogo asciutto e fresco, al riparo dal sole About right for the average developer's lifestyle :) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Greg Hurlman | Go go Google Translation! 'To conserve in a dry and fresh place, protected from the sun' ... hey! |
| "No Defense for Linux" | Thu 29 Jul | Philo |
| http://www.designnews.com/article/CA435615.html Linux is being designed into future U.S. defense system, including the Army’s Future Combat System (FCS), the Land Warrior, and the Global Information Grid, which will connect all future military systems into a single network. This spread of Linux into defense systems is cause for serious concern. Linux security is inadequate for defense use. If the systems now under development are deployed with Linux, U.S. national security will be at risk. Id be interested to hear some reasoned, factual rebuttal of the article. Philo [Microsoft] |
| Thu 29 Jul | christopher (baus.net) | FUD. This guy clearly has no idea how Linux kernels are released. Just because work is done in China, doesn't mean it gets into the kernel releases. How does closed source prevent the trojan scenario? If anything it makes it more possible. To me it sounds like this guy is posing as an expert, but doesn't really understand the problem. |
| Thu 29 Jul | christopher (baus.net) | [Note: the following article can be deleted for space:] |
| Thu 29 Jul | Clay Whipkey | So does this author really think that he is more thorough and comprehensive in his analysis than the DOD? How else can he explain why Linux is *being used* in defense systems, as opposed to just *being considered*? |
| Thu 29 Jul | RocketJeff | http://www.cotsjournalonline.com/home/article.php?%20id=100128 (hopefully that's all on one line). Also, he's not preaching Windows v/s Linux - he's saying that his company's OS is better. This is the third time in the past year that he's released a white paper about how insecure Linux is and how it'll mean the downfall of our country if not civilization itself if the DOD uses it. None of the three papers have hard facts or statistics to back up his claims, it's just FUD from a company that (according to friends who work with embedded systems) is losing market share - to Linux as well as to other embedded OS's. |
| Thu 29 Jul | MT Heart | He's the CEO of Green Hills Software http://www.ghs.com/RTOSLeader.html They sell Real-Time embedded operating systems for military applications so you can see where he's coming from. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Philo | Ahhh.... excellent catches, RocketJeff and MT - thanks, I wasn't aware of that. Regarding the back door in Unix - was the Unix source code available? (I honestly don't know) 'How else can he explain why Linux is *being used* in defense systems' Never worked in government procurement, have you? Philo |
| Thu 29 Jul | MSHack | Sorry, but it is FUD or more precisely, wrong. Anyone who has ever worked on a government contract can tell you the anal retentive nature makes testing so extreme that it is unlikely that anything would make it into the field with errors. If they did, the most reasonable attack would be a trojan or back door that allows the 'enemy' to control the weapon. Sorry but most weapons systems do not allow external change of commands, plus PALs or similar security. In addition, the weapons systems run 'on' linux, meaning they have their own protocols on top of anything linux may provide. The government could write their own (and NSA Linux is a perfect example), or an alternative is closed source system which have the same problems without anyone seeing the code who may notice something gone astray. Sorry this one is a red herring. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Anon-y-mous Cow-ard | Nice try Philo. Linux's armor still remains clean & unblemished while MS rusts in the junk yard... |
| Thu 29 Jul | RocketJeff | >>Regarding the back door in Unix - was the Unix source code available? (I honestly don't know) Back then, most sites that had Unix has the source also - it was in the very early days of Unix. It didn't matter in this case. The issue was that the backdoor wasn't in the source of the login program or the C compiler - it was inserted directly in the binary. It was designed so that the C compiler would detect when the login program was being recompiled and insert the backdoor logic directly in the binary. The C compiler would also detect when it was being recompiled and insert the logic that detected/infected the login program and the C compiler directly into the C compiler. The idea was pure genius and was only effective because he had direct control of both the source and the binary that was distributed with Unix. If there had been a 3rd party compiler (or cross compiler) in use or multiple sources of compiler binaries, he would have been able to put a backdoor in his own system but probably not too many others. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Jay Monkman | It's misleading, with just enough truth to be disconcerting. Sure, someone could put malicious code in the Linux kernel. But it's not like any yahoo can make a change and upload the kernel to kernel.org. For most people to get their code in the official kernel, the code has to go through at least one well known, trusted person. Theoretically, that person reviews the change. The people that can get code in the kernel without review are well known, supposedly trustworthy individuals (and there's probably less than 10 of them). It's really not that much different than with other software, except that nothing is kept secret. So, it's not as easy as he makes it sound to get a trojan in the kernel. But, if one does get in, you (as a user) have a chance to find it. Is that true with Green Hills' ThreadX operating sytem? I doubt it. I think all of his arguments are worse for his own OS than Linux. What assurance do I have that he or one of his employees isn't a foreign agent? Or more likely, just disgruntled with a vendetta? Does anyone outside of his company look at the source code? The US military has been using open source operating systems for a long time. Some of my work uses RTEMS ( http://www.rtems.com ), and open source real-time OS developed _for_ the army in the 80s. He's just trying to scare customers into using his OS. Wind River used to do the same thing, until very recently. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Justin Johnson | Linux is, or is currently in the process of, FIPS certification, I believe, which includes, among other things, certifying a particular version of the source code that's been certified secure (and there are convenient digital means like MD5 hashes to verify that the code is identical to what was certified). So, even if a Chinese hacker could slip a backdoor into the code, it would either have to get past FIPS certification or it wouldn't be in the code used by the DOD. The FUD-spreader in the OP (not you, Philo) is implying that a foreign hacker could slip something in and there would be no review at all of it. Ergo, he's either simply wrong or maliciously wrong. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Justin Johnson | To be clear, FIPS certification is a requirement for secure government software. [I'm winging all this, by the way. The gist of it is right, but there's good odds I'm using the wrong acronyms.] |
| Thu 29 Jul | Tayssir John Gabbour | He is either a liar or insane. The fact he wrote '[Note: the following paragraph can be deleted for space:]' probably means he was aware of the lie in that upcoming paragrah. Unless I am painfully mistaken, Kernighan did not install the trojan as this guy libellously claimed, merely pointed out how it could happen. Based on an old Air Force critique. http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/ |
| Thu 29 Jul | no name | The thing that amused me most about the article in question was the idea that the only reason anyone could possibly ever want to use Linux is 'to save money'. How can anyone actually accuse a government of wanting to save money? Not only that, but the US DoD isn't known for beign the most badly funded government agency on the planet to start with :) Personally, I'm quite happy with the idea that there's better operating systems than Linux or Windows, but that article strikes me as somewhat paranoid and full of questionable statistics. That doesn't inspire trust in his conclusions - if he's right, why doesn't he back up his claim with solid evidence? I may not be an expert, but if even I can see unreliable claims and irrelevant statistics being used to back up a claim, there's got to be something wrong. 'You have to be an expert to understand the problem here' may not make for such an exciting article, but it's got to be better than 'I'm going to distort and simplify the issues and pretend that I've given accurate and useful information.' Here's an example: There's a discussion of the EAL/4 rating for one specific version of windows at http://eros.cs.jhu.edu/~shap/NT-EAL4.html Here's my favourite bit: > The Bottom Line for Windows 2000 > In the case of CAPP, an EAL4 evaluation tells you everything you need > to know. It tells you that Microsoft spent millions of dollars producing > documentation that shows that Windows 2000 meets an inadequate set of > requirements, and that you can have reasonably strong confidence that > this is the case. The fact that the claim in the article is technically accurate doesn't necessarily mean that it's relevant. This is old news - so why would any security professional bring it up? Here's another example: Apparantly Linux has had a greater total number of security vulnerabilities in released versions than Windows has. This statistic may be true, but it's not actually informative. You need to account for the scope and impact of a vulnerability as well as its mere existance, and it would be sensible to account for the fact that Linux developers and Microsoft have a significantly different approach to release schedules and bug tracking. Does the Microsoft statistic include all vulnerabilities found and fixed before the software was released? If not, then you should remove all vulnerabilities found in a 'development' release that were fixed for a 'stable' release of Linux as well. Haven't we been over this time and time again? Are there really people still abusing vulnarability statistics this badly and still being taken seriously? Sure, it's hard to objectively compare the security of different operating systems, but that's no excuse for doing so badly. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Tayssir John Gabbour | I am going to retract my post I just made, since: a) I have been editing audio all night and am too tired to trust my own analysis. b) I posted way too quickly, without careful research. That was stupid. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Scot | The NSA is doing some interesting work with Linux: http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/ |
| Fri 30 Jul | Christopher Wells | > Ahhh.... excellent catches, RocketJeff and MT - thanks, I wasn't aware of that.
And you were so careful to add [Microsoft] to your own sig.
When you saw 'Author Information: O'Dowd is CEO of Green Hills Software', weren't you at all inclined to Google for 'Green Hills Software'?
> I'd be interested to hear some reasoned, factual rebuttal of the article.
To rebut them, you would first need to find some statements in the article. Paragraph by paragraph:
> ... If the systems now under development are deployed with Linux, U.S. national security will be at risk.
U.S. national security is perpetually 'at risk', isn't it.
> ... If the operating system is compromised, an enemy can spy on, disable, or commandeer the entire system.
If, and depending on the compromise.
> With the knowledge that Linux is going to control our most advanced defense systems, foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists can easily infiltrate the Linux community to contribute subversive software.
So, caveat emptor as usual.
> A CIA Trojan horse in the software that controlled the trans-Siberia gas pipeline caused a massive explosion.
No comment.
> It would be incredibly naïve to believe that other countries and terrorist organizations would not exploit an easy opportunity to sabotage our military or critical infrastructure systems when we have been doing the same thing to them for over twenty years!
So, to be relevent to his point the author should now show that enemies have an easy opportunity to sabotage the Linux that 'is being designed into future U.S. defense system.'
> If we proceed with plans to allow Linux to run these defense systems without demanding proof that it contains no subversive or dangerous code waiting to emerge after we bring it inside, then we invite the fate of Troy.
'Proof that it contains no dangerous code': that's an area of computer science that I've heard of but have never studied (I know bits about bug-hunting, but not about 'proving' that they don't exist ... especially in big systems).
> The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires software that runs commercial (and many military) aircraft be approved as part of a DO-178B certification.
I don't know DO-178B; one quick Google suggests that DO-178B is about documenting the development process: does that mean it's anything like the EAL/4 as ridiculed by |
| Fri 30 Jul | David Heinrich | If security is one's top priority, Linux is certainly a good choice (if properly configured). I use Gentoo Linux for my personal desktop, and have went through the various security-increasing hardening processes (compiling the source-code yourself also eliminates unnecessary dependencies, thus eliminating various security exploits). Security's one of the reasons I think the Apple model for applications (every application = own directory) is retarded: imagine having many different versions of the same library floating around -- that means many more security exploits. Linux is good for most things, as far as security is concerned. However, if your paramount concern is security, then I don't see why you should use Linux. You should be using OpenBSD. OpenBSD is the most secure OS in the world, and goes through rigorous security testing. Of course, you'll have to sacrafice various things, like an accelerated desktop, but if your concerned about security, I doubt your using the computer as a workstation for a layman. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Okay nothing 'factual', but you gotta remember, the author of the article you've written hasn't exactly been doing both RTOS and Linux development for the last 5 years so he isn't exactly qualified either. Philo, you gotta remember that spies don't necessary rely on a single point of failure in the security chain. A big hole is always a nice to have from their point of view, but I doubt any worthwhile spy master would hedge large bets on any such leads (it could be an intentional false lead). In most security situations, it's still the human factor and institutional security policies that's weakest. The pros of Linux are well known and I'll keep them short: * Code review: Once you decide what device drivers are really required and needs to be audited, the base kernel is well known and reasonably small, it can be audited. One might argue well the army needs to use every device driver so thus any Taiwanese or Chinese vendor could add a malware inside some innocent NIC card driver--well what's to say you can't do that with a Windows device driver or something written to compile with some proprietary RTOS? The argument is either: the army will have to be responsible in ensuring the linux investment is supported by a reasonable code auditting process (kind of like the one in the OpenBSD community). Although a commercial vendor can dare to claim they vouch for every line of their kernel space projects--it is still the Army's responsibility to hold up their end of the security net by ensuring all code are auditted. This sounds like a big cost, but the important thing to remember is this is just as valid for linux or non-linux OS. Army had tons of proprietary RTOS that all had to pass the same auditting process, it is only now they might benefit from having to audit just linux (or just Windows) for some common projects with a soft real time requirement. * Linux leads many RTOS in application library support. (again, the more libraries, the more auditting required, if you want to use Perl, you have to be responsible, if you want to use GCC, more responsibility, but there are more useful programs written for Linux than most proprietary soft real time RTOS at the moment) Some of the libraries are licensed in a way to allow for auditting as well. Again, you can't ask the army to test every bloody open source language, but the task isn't so insurmountable if you reduce it to Sun Java + GCC + Mono (and maybe a scripting language, any one). The 3 mentioned provide full source and can be audited if need be (thankfully, Microsoft is also trying hard to make code auditing of their equivalent development, so the army can benefit from that as well). The key reason for insecurity in software is 1) lack of code audits for security bugs; 2) human policy (I am the commander of the atlantic fleet but my password is god; or I am the vice president of the United States and I can't figure out how to use this smart card so please just remember my face) and genuine human error (that's what code audits and policy audits are for). There are no genuinly good reason why the open source development model makes it impossible for the Army to baby sit a truthworthy branch of Linux they can use inside and out. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Uh, so Philo, what's your opinion on this matter? Whether they be of your employer's or strictly off the record? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | If any of the replies of this OP tried too hard to discredit the author, I think we should remember that the author has valid concerns (although maybe not very valid threat theories). Any OS used by the military must be taken very seriously. On a general note, not to diss the c/c++ crowd too much, it would be nice to reduce a whole class of security threats (like memory clobbering) by reducing the amount of c code in the field. Java and other major languages have had wonderful head start in the soft real time space and the java real time specification is a worth while endeavor (perhaps major organizations that want to depend on Linux should pour some serious resources into such projects). Another project worth nothing is the ability for Linux kernels to off load kernel-side responsibilities to user space hooks (er, many OS can do this, but I just want to point it out). You add these hooks to reliable languages where you can reduce the amount of memory-based attacks and it does make it easier for programmers not to shoot themselves in the foot. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Michael Jessopp | >> 'OpenBSD is the most secure OS in the world...' Wild claims (FUD) are rebuked by more wild claims. Clever. What evidence is there to support the claim that OpenBSD is more secure than any other operating system, such as OpenVMS? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | A genuine concern: ASICs now are getting really sophisticated now days and integration advances (especially at the classified level) is becoming so strong that I would ask you this question: What if you the device driver is kosher, but the chip isn't? What's to prevent a 10 meter - 100 meter triangulatable radio from being inserted into every american tank in some innocent off the shelf microcontroller by a French company that aids land mines in proper detonation. Maybe the radio randomly turns on during a few miliseconds in a reasonably discreet select time frame to report it's location to potential land mines, maybe the signal is reasonably out of band and discreet as to pass manufacturing or security inspection. This would allow a whole class of land mines that listens for parked vehicles. They would genuinely be undetectable because all mine electronics are never activated until such presented time when they really need to perk up their ears. This is a really dumb example but it's something to consider. All in one chips are very common now, what's to prevent some naughty ICs from making it in. That's pretty much undetectable. Or is it? Can someone chip in? |
| Fri 30 Jul | John | I agree that the DOD will consider the security aspect very closely. I suspect that the version of Linux they use will not be an off the shelf distro and that it will be customized and the changes will not be released as they won't be selling the new software. The 'backdoor' in to UNIX story comes from an ACM Turing award lecture by either Richie or Thompson where they outlined a way a back door could be put into Unix. There was no claim in the lecure that it was actually done and released. The approach was very clever but any compiled code that you install could could contain a backdoor. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Chinese Open Source Contributor | I completely support the use of Linux for military applications. It is a very secure system. |
| Fri 30 Jul | John | http://www.acm.org/classics/sep95/ The lecture on the 'backdoor' in to UNIX by Ken Thompson. |
| Fri 30 Jul | MacSqueeb | Somebody already beat me to it, but I'll say it anyway. Clay, it's not just the DOD (and you know my props for them), but also the NSA. Them's the serious men in black ;-) |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | The fact that the guy is CEO of a RTOS developer might actually mean he knows what he's talking about, unlike the Linux roolz fans. Since accusations about a conflict of interest were predictable, he's also a very brave man. As to his points, there have been numberous instances of bugs in Linux code. According to the many eyes mantra, this was impossible. All those open source developers viewing the code were meant to see all these bugs, but they didn't. It would not be hard to insert dangerous code in a Linux submission in a way that evaded even quite throrough inspection, let alone the cursory inspection that probably takes place. A commercial provider like Green Hills, on the other hand, is identifiably responsible for its products and has a chain of evaluating personnel, work and releases. His warnings are valid and brave, and will return to bite us in a few years time. |
| Fri 30 Jul | mb | and what's to prevent a spy from getting employeed at green hills? oh, and considering someone brave for spewing fud about their competition. no, that's not brave. it's normal business practice. |
| Fri 30 Jul | KayJay | IMVHO, the reason why TLAs, across the world, insist on using closed source commericial vendors (CSCV) are,
1) The CEO of the company making the CSCV is the person to be beheaded/hung/electrocuted/sued/sent-to-Gumatanamo-Bay, should the fertilizer hit the ceiling. For open source, free ones, e.g. Linux, who is liable for prosecutuion? The submitter of the flawed patch? Or Linus? Or the Lt. Col. who oversaw the implementation?
2) It is cheaper to pay somone to do the job. An internal development team would include extra-salary expenses such as housing, catering, etc.
3) A CSCV has a vested interest in retaining the contract. Hence it is expected of them to customise and customise and customise even more. An Open Source Vendor (OSV) has no such incentive. In addition there are no contractual obligations to provide upgrades, updates and bug-fixes, insofar as that product is used without any explicit understanding between the parties to inlcude such obligations as part of the contract. Such a contract is more likely to be signed when the OSV is hired for monies to implement such changes. In which case he becomes an Open Source Commercial Vendor.
4) Should the OSV become an OSCV, the new product that includes any changes and and improvements automatically (from what little corporate law I know) become a CSCV as such changes have been made specifically for a single customer in whose interest it is to keep such improvements secret.
5) Release Early Realease Often is NOT advisable for a Military Project.
6) Many Eyes is NOT a Good Thing (TM) for a Military project.
IOW, TLAs have two options; open source software built upon and customised internally or closed source software, paid for by the exchqeuer, with a contractual obligation for delivery of specified goods.
To repeat my comments from another thread, for a Govt. or a Commercial Organisation, it is primarily a matter of 'Who's head should roll?'. Again, I am presuming technical equivalence between CSCV and OSV.
Even if an OSV provides a technically better product, the costs of identifying the entity that is culpable and initiating mitigative procedures is, IMO, more than paying a CSCV for the improvements sought.
|
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr.Fancypants | I'm a professional developer that programs for Windows and MacOS and I tend to avoid Linux, despite having a heavy Unix background (SunOS, Solaris, AIX, IRIX). Also, I don't agree with the politics of the FSF. Having said all of that, the guy who wrote this article is either dumb or just totally full of shit. |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | Fancypants, you are obviously a well informed and intelligent chap, going from your other posts. The guy who wrote this piece has written on the same theme previously. If you're interested, have a look for them. If he wanted, he could achieve his commercial interests in board meetings and presentations. He doesn't need to write something in the public media. To do so in the current climate is rather brave. He doesn't sound like an idiot at all. |
| Fri 30 Jul | i like i | 'He doesn't sound like an idiot at all.' Does he sound like a Darl McBride? Seriously, I first met this guy's articles in some embedded mag about a year ago. Or maybe it was some competitior of his such as WR. It is straightforward to question his logic because of the obvious bias. It would be just the same if someone such as Philo got a bit published about Windows for Warships. I've been reading articles about small gov teams making fighting systems with Linux for ages. Actually putting standard ruggedised PCs into combat vehicles and running linux on them. All these articles I've read in such a theme (one, IIRC, in Linux Journal) all seem grass-roots engineers decisions. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bicuspix | 'They sell Real-Time embedded operating systems for military applications so you can see where he's coming from.' Rather like another large closed source company in the Pac_Northwest. There is one drawback though as I see using Linux in these applications. I follow the many eyes to spot bugs etc. But what if one of those sets of eyes belongs to a terrorist, any bugs they find are NOT going to be made public, nor any inherent design weaknesses. Many eyes are not going to catch ALL the problems. Remember the good guys have to win 100% of the time, the bad guys only once. So in this respect, I t might seem better to use closed source. BUT.... the closed source stuff is far more vulnerable to one thing than open source. It is vulnerable to a terrorist group making a worker give them the code either through payola or by threatening family etc. The problem with that is then they have a copy and no one knows. Obviously there are some good points to closed and open idealogy when it comes to security. The Green Hills guy does bring up some excellent points that Linux may not be that suitable to all applications because it is not real time enough etc. Also Linux is rather large for embedded apps etc. I think Green Hills and the VxLinux folks make some nice kit, but the big push for Linux is because its free$$$, rather than it's the best tool for the job or the most secure. |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | The argument about terrorists or organised crime blackmailing or threatening staff or management are not unique to source code though. Let's face it. If someone was going to do this, they have lots of opportunities in other areas. It's called spying. |
| Fri 30 Jul | M. Night Shammalamma | 'Linux security is inadequate for defense use. If the systems now under development are deployed with Linux, U.S. national security will be at risk' How about if you start with some facts to back up that statement. |
| Fri 30 Jul | anony coward | '6) Many Eyes is NOT a Good Thing (TM) for a Military project.' It depends on whose eyes. How much of Microsoft's research and development is being done in a communist country? (*cough* CHINA *cough*) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Peter | Closed source software is not immune to serious defects in security. Some time ago, Borland used to sell Interbase. But there was a secret hidden backdoor account in the database product that could not be mitigated. This secret backdoor account was exposed when Interbase became open source and a fix appeared very quickly. The localsystem account has to authenticate itself to the lsas, does it use a similar backdoor as interbase? Without viewing the source, you can't tell for sure. If you revoke the certificate belonging to the localsystem account, your machine locks up and can't boot again. The question that no one can answer is: how many other software products and operating systems have these back door accounts? With closed source software, you have to take it on faith that the person is telling the truth. When in fact they might not know the truth, or they might be lieing to you. You don't know. You can't know. If the closed source software is being offshored, you have the security issue that the CEO of greenhills is complaining about: you don't know who is putting whatever into the source tree. And the problem with EULAs (assuming they get held up as valid contracts in court) is that even if the vendor knew there were defects, you cannot recover damages. http://www.securityfocus.com/news/136 |
| Fri 30 Jul | grunt | This discussion reminds me the 1995 movie "The Net" with Sandra Bullock discovering a backdoor in a commercial "security" app. :) |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | The thing is that commercial developers have to stand by their products. Their product is their future so they have a big incentive to verify it and vouch for it. |
| Fri 30 Jul | MacSqueeb | Linux is a terrorist weapon of Al Queuda. It all started in 1991 when Linus was recruided by Osama Bin Laden to write the kernel for a subversive operating system. AQ then positioned key operatives and cells, who specialized in grass roots promotion, throughout the world to promote Linux, initially through USENET, and eventually through the web. This planted the seeds of dissent among young impressionable, wanna-be hackers who jumped on the band-wagon, and eventually worked their way up the ranks in business and government until AQ had acheived a successful infiltration, without the infiltrators even realizing they were doing the bidding of their dark masters. Once in positions of influence, the Linux advocates began making recommendations for Linux solutions, which were initially scoffed at, but over time they wore down their detractors at the same time they climbed to higher and higher positions of leadership. Industry leaders like IBM began to fall under the Al Queda/Linux spell and the damn broke. I guess we all know what happened next. Businesses, schools and government began adopting Linux solutions like it was a voluntary tuberculosis epidemic. Now the damage is done; the Department of Defense of the leader of the free world has embraced the trojan horse of their enemy and we will all soon be turned into penguins and inducted into slavery under our Finnish / Al Quedist masters. I know this is all true because I saw Linus and Osama Bin Laden huddled together at a corner table in Starbucks discussing the unprecedented progress of their plan thus far. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Osama likes latte? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Albert D. Kallal | Considering the popularity and use of Linux in embedded devices like phones and popular products like Linksys routers, it seems to me that using a Linux for some of these devices makes a lot sense, and is a rather appropriate use of system that lets you choose and pick out the parts that you need. Most of these systems simply need a file system, and a place to host some code. I see no reason to re-invent the wheel here. With something like Linux you simply cut out what you don’t need, and away you go. Linux for this makes a lot of sense. Albert D. Kallal Edmonton, Alberta Canada kallal@msn.com http://www.attcanada.net/~kallal.msn |
| Fri 30 Jul | Li-fan Chen | Philo are you gonna chip in? You usually have pretty good thoughts on these sorts of issues. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Formerly someone else | 'I know this is all true because I saw Linus and Osama Bin Laden huddled together at a corner table in Starbucks discussing the unprecedented progress of their plan thus far.' Damn I new that was them sitting right across the aisle from Elvis and Salaman Rushdie. |
| HTTP Access logging | Thu 29 Jul | christopher (baus.net) |
| Quick question. Do any of you use a centralized server for HTTP access logging? If you do, what web server do you use, and what logging protocol? For example are you using syslog? The systems Ive worked on dont have a lot of HTTP origin servers. They primarily scale behind the HTTP server, so access logging is still centralized. TIA... |
| Thu 29 Jul | Mike | My company uses squid. It runs on NT and authenticates with our NT domain. Much nicer than the msproxy junk of years gone by. We disable downloading a lot of nasty file types, which does help circumvent some of the bho/adware/spyware crap. Plus when IE tells users there is a new version available, they can't get it. (Hint: Microsoft change this brain addled misfeature. Any company with any sense locks ordinary users down - no admin rights. But what does IE do, proceeds to download and start installing but lo and behold it needs admin, but doesn't figure this out before fsking up the system but good.) |
| Thu 29 Jul | christopher (baus.net) | Maybe I should clarify my question. When I say HTTP access. I mean HTTP server access. Apache writes to a file by default for performance reasons, but this is really inconvienent if you have, say, 50 servers. Logging is a really strange problem. At first glance it seems so simple, but the more you investigate the problem, the more complicated it gets. It is really easy for the logger to be the bottleneck of the system. |
| Thu 29 Jul | jerry | well.....actually, you can use Squid for this too. I have a couple Squid servers (running on Linux) configured in a reverse-proxy fashion in front of 8 content servers for a few busy sites. Squid provides load balancing and caching and that's where all my server access logs are generated. The logs are then processed on another dedicated server which does nothing but crunch the logs and produce pretty reports for the clients. |
| Thu 29 Jul | jerry | I forgot to mention that my logs are all stored directly in a MySQL database which is running on yet another small cluster of servers. In total, I process logs for around 40 Apache servers and hundreds of sites.....and it WAS the bottleneck until I got all the scripts dialed in to the point where it's a totally automated system. Adding a new site and having it magically appear in the logging system requires only the correct CustomLog directive in the Apache config file. |
| Thu 29 Jul | christopher (baus.net) | Is this what you are using? http://sourceforge.net/projects/squidlogger2sql/ I'm implementing something similar to squid, with a different focus. Right now the logger is the bottleneck, and it is causing some problems since the server is single threaded. What happens is under load the syslog() call blocks, which is really bad. Instead of servicing another request which isn't logging, the server blocks. I am tempted to write my own syslog client, but that seems like a lot of work. |
| Thu 29 Jul | jerry | We're using a setup very similar to this: http://www.linux-mag.com/2003-08/lamp_01.html with numerous little tweaks and enhancements (mostly small custom devleped helper scripts and applications). I would also point out that the 2 Squid boxes I referred to earlier have lots of RAM and very fast drive sub-systems and that everything in our racks is plugged into gigabit ethernet switching. We keep a 100 Mbit pipe steadily saturated at around half of its capacity and 95% of that traffic is being delivered from database intensive web-applications (more than 5000 queries per second being handled by the various database servers). |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bicuspix | Jerry, sounds like a king of porn setup. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Peter | We use webtrends smart source data collector. Admin wanted to get away from iis logs. Pro: one box for logging, has some pretty decent reporting and data collection. Con: to implement it, one has to add code to every page (since we tend to use common headers (top left) and footers (bottom right), that reduces the time to implement it by a lot), and instead of linking directly to PDFs, you have to have an intermediate/redirect page. |
| Fri 30 Jul | christopher (baus.net) | Webtrends takes a much more evasive approach. They certainly get get a lot more information with their approach. I suspect some sites use server side access logging in combination with something like webtrends. |
| How do pople get thier first job? | Thu 29 Jul | Iuknown |
| Most jobs seem to require 3+ years of experience. How do people get thier first job? * Writing programs on your own. * Starting out in testing and debugging and slowly making your way up the ladder. Other? |
| Thu 29 Jul | TheGeezer | Canvass. Interview. Hire. ;-) |
| Thu 29 Jul | snotnose | I learned how to program on my own, when I was a bench tech. I started writing code at work to exercise the hardware. Engineering found out about it and drafted me. Of course, I learned Z-80 assembler, used 8080 at work, and this was 25 years ago when few people knew what a microprocessor was, let alone assembly. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Craig H | If you have a degree in Computer Science, with a good GPA (3.5 or higher). You shouldn't have too much of a problem with just sending in your resume to large software companies and attending career fairs. If not then try to find an entry level tech job at a big company and work your way up, or even better work your way through school and get a better job when you graduate. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Rob | I'm sure your school has an employment office. The companies that go there are by definition looking for entry-level, so that's probably the best place to start. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Code Monkey | >How do people get thier first job? Actually the first one is the easiest because one does not have many expectations (excepting the crazy dot com era ofcourse!) . It is just that not many people advertise these jobs directly. Look for internships....look for volunteer work...go meet some people at user groups anyplace where you can showcase your enthuthiasm and skills in a low key manner. Be creative....a friend of mine right out of high school wrote a very informed critique of a piece of software and suggested how it could be made better. Four months later he was working for the company....for peanuts..but that experience helped him get to where he is today |
| Thu 29 Jul | Michael Ealem | Internships - gives the employer a chance to try you out. I know of several people that went straight from an internship to a position with the company upon graduation. That old cliche - networking. Almost without exception every job I've gotten was because I got a call from a friend, or someone else's friend, or because someone at a user's group meeting remembered me and remembered I had a clue and tracked me down. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Philo | I raised my right hand, said 'I, [state your name], do solemnly swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...' Wasn't really that big a deal. Seemed to be kind of expected, actually... Philo |
| Thu 29 Jul | RP | I just waited to make 18 during an economic boom. It worked. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dave B. | If I remember correctly some people actually said "I, state your full name". Lol. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Mr.Analogy | Those were the folks were "non designated" (i.e., destined to Boatwain's mates). I.e., they didn't qualify for any technical schools, just a month of naval history and knot tying training. |
| Thu 29 Jul | andrew | I join a project as tester and then support, but for a good company. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Mike | Take a job in helpdesk or pc support. You'll get an appreciation of people that just use a computer to get a task done. Show some promise there and you will get moved up. I did. I'm now a dba. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Eric V. | In case B. Sc. students are reading, I will claim my +1 to Craig's statement that having a good GPA helps a lot. There are some IT companies such as Softimage and Discreet that require a 3.4 GPA at least to consider an interview. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Philo | 'If I remember correctly some people actually said 'I, state your full name'. Lol.' When I worked in the radio station, we had a rap that included a clip of a whole lotta voices repeating 'I, state your name...' Philo |
| Thu 29 Jul | Christopher Wells | I was hired as an intern to do network performance analysis for a tlco equipment manufacturer. They liked my worked and asked me to return as a programmer after I fiished my degree ... and gave me a job as a 'maintenance engineer' (fixing bugs in released products, working alone) for 14 months, then a promotion to 'development engineer' (junior person on a two-man team, writing some new software). I'm not sure how I got that first job as an intern; it was partly self-motivation, and partly 'luck' and connections. The self-motivation was my deciding independently to take a year off after two years of a three-year degree course, to get some industry experience: I decided that I wasn't going to be working as an astrophysicist or a quantum mechanic after I graduated, so I needed to get some work experience to prepare me for something else before I graduated. The luck and connections was that during my year off, my parents found someone from their extensive network of social contacts (they were both teachers) whose work involved 'computers or something', and who introduced me to their company's internship program. For another data point, my brother is currently an editor at The Times; he knew that was the industry he wanted to work in. His first job was dog's-body (e.g. courier) at a publisher ... then sub-editor and then editor at weekly entermainment suplement, then content manager for AOL UK. For a third data point, the first guy I hired had been working in a warehouse; but he was a hacker (had written an IDE in assembler), and replied to a job advertisement when we needed someone who could hack assembler, so he was in. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Jack of All | My first job was a milk run after school. My friend got me the job... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr.Fancypants | Lie on your resume & interview. It worked for me. |
| Fri 30 Jul | kc | Philo, Thank you for your service. KC |
| Fri 30 Jul | patrick | yes, unfortunately a lot of companies did look at GPA. I had a lot of internship experience + i had been in the army, but some places wouldn't talk to me because of my GPA (it was close to 3 going into the last semester). anyways, ended up working for a large investment bank where i stayed for 6 years. i would have probably left at 3.5, but that was when the .com error burst. anyways, good luck! |
| Fri 30 Jul | Duq | From surveyor to projectionist, math-teacher, site-engineer, tech-support rep, tech trainer, tech writer to programmer.... Oh, I did start programming on a Commodore VC-20 back in '85 or so. Might have helped... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Bella | A headhunter got me my first job. It is very hard to get that first job. Be patient. Also, realize that your career will most likely head in the direction that 1st job puts you in. eg: If you get a tester job, you might never get a chance to be a 'real' programmer. If there are a lot of sysAdmin duties, you may follow the path of sysAdmin. B/c whatever experience you get at the first job is where you'll be most likely to be hired doing in your 2nd job, when you get a hefty pay raise. |
| Fri 30 Jul | PickyTypoCriticisingJerk | Wasn't there a kid's show on television in the '80s called 'The Popples'? I didn't know they had jobs though. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Brad Clarke | I got my first job following a co-op term. That was 16 years ago. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Sgt. Sausage | C.S. degree, 1994 (has it really been that long?), University of Cincinnati.
Anyway, the campus 'Career Development' office.
At that time, all the local companies, and many from across the nation, would send their recruiters to interview on campus. This was an opportunity I could not pass up.
I went to a dozen or so interviews with little podunk companies that I had absolutely no intention of working for. Used this time to polish the 'pitch', become comfortable in front of interviewers and being put 'on the spot'.
After a dozen or so of these 'throw-away' interviews, I requested a scheduled 'critique' of my interviewing skills. Basically, the Career Development office sat you in your next interview with a video camera. You later reviewed your performance with a panel of counselors from the office.
Based on that critique, I went to another 3 or 4 interviews -- again, 'throw-away' -- I didn't want jobs with these folks, I just wanted to practice the art of interviewing.
Finally, I created the ShortList -- the list of companies coming for on campus recruitment that I actually *wanted* to work for. I believe these were IBM, GE, ComSat, and the |
| Fri 30 Jul | Sgt. Sausage | ==>I raised my right hand, said 'I, [state your name], do solemnly swear to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic...' That was really my first job -- I did the military thing prior to college. They (you, the taxpayer) paid for my college under the Montgomery GI Bill. Went to college, and then got the first 'real' job. 2 yrs, U.S. Army, 11C (Infantry, mortars) 6 yrs, OH Army National Guard (Mechanized Infantry). I remember it as 'support and defend'. Maybe I'm misremembering. Let's see how close I can get: I [state your name] do solemnly swear (or affirm) to support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and alegience to same. I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me ... Sh*t. Can't remember it. Now I've got to go look it up. Dammit! |
| Interviewing: common terminology? | Thu 29 Jul | Mr. Analogy |
| Hello all, Im interviewing some entry-level inepxerienced programmers. Im using some terminology that I *thought* was pretty common place here in the USA, but wanted to reality-check that. These are terms that I thought any CS *student*, much less graduate would know. *IDE *Modal Dialog Box *Static vs. Dyamic Linked I use these terms all the time, but maybe Ive forgotten when I did NOT know them :-) |
| Thu 29 Jul | snotnose | I would say they should know what an IDE is, might know what a modal Dialog box is if they've been indoctrinated in Windows. I'd be very surprised if a new grad knew the difference between static and dynamic linking. YMMV though, I'm guessing at what a modal dialog box is but am very familiar with static/dynamic linking. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Chris | -IDE should be pretty well known, but many students use UNIX tools and don't have much experience using real IDE's. -Modal Dialog Box... again many students are coming from a UNIX world where they didn't program GUIs. It still should be something most computer people would know. -Static vs Dynamic linking. I think this is something many CS grads would not be too familiar with. It's not really something you learn doing programming in college. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Kyralessa | Static vs. dynamic linking of _what_? |
| Thu 29 Jul | AllanL5 | 'of _what_'? Troll? Oh, well. Static vs. Dynamic linking of an application. In Static linking, the run-time library code is linked in to the application. Kind of like Borland does it. Each app then has its own copy of the library code it uses. In Dynamic linking, only a reference to the library is included in the code. Then, the run-time dynamically loads the run-time library when it is used (or, shares an already loaded instance). This way, ONE instance of the library can serve multiple applications. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Chris Tavares | Static vs Dynamic linking not learned in college? Don't colleges require Operating System courses anymore? When I got my CS degree, we had to write a loader and a linker, and went into these things in pretty serious detail. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Ian Olsen | I agree with Chris. I'd definitely want to see transcripts if someone claimed to have spent four years studying computer science and couldn't give a fair description of static vs. dynamic linking. It's not like this is a bleeding edge or seldom used concept. |
| Thu 29 Jul | mb | Well, except that they have computer 'science' degrees. So static vs dynamic linking had best have been covered in the OS class. But that may have been it. IDE - is that like vi? Or buzzword for 'editor'? Modal Dialog box - is that like printf? As for hire/no hire, depends what you're looking for, did they understand dynamic/static linking after a 1 paragraph explaination? Do you care if they understand UI concepts? |
| Thu 29 Jul | ian | This relates to the other thread about landing that first job. What students are taught in college may not include much of the real world, practical, business oriented, industrial stuff that you and I take for granted. It takes a bit of work experience to fill that gap. So perhaps some graduates will indeed fail to know about IDEs, static/dynamic linking, and modal dialogs. On the other hand, I don't suppose I would think about employing such people. The good candidates will have enthusiastically learned, read and programmed way outside the course material and will know what you are talking about. Those are the ones you recommend for employment. (Not because they know that stuff, but because they have demonstrated the interest, aptitude and willingness to learn that will make them good people to have on staff.) |
| Thu 29 Jul | Philo | Good points, Ian, but what if their curriculum was 100% assembly language, Unix, Pascal, C++, and they taught themselves .Net, PHP, Java, etc? One thing about self-taught people, especially if they don't have a user group handy, is that they may not learn a lot of the 'standard' terminology. I think it's possible to get pretty good at a 4GL in isolation without really grokking what 'IDE' means. Sure, you use Eclipse, Dreamweaver, and Visual Studio, and maybe you kinda know that when something says 'IDE' it's gesturing in the general direction of your workspace. But be able to actually define it when pinned down? Maybe not... ;-) Philo |
| Thu 29 Jul | Lou | I don't know, those should be fairly well known (business major here and I knew them). Of course you should probably phrase your question away from "What's an IDE" to, "What do you look for in an IDE". That way you can give a brief description or pointer to an IDE to help the candidate out without disrupting the flow. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Dennis Atkins | I know what all these terms mean but they were never discussed at the univ. I went to. The more fancy CS departments don't ever touch things like IDEs or GUIs. It's all unix, vi and gdb for the most part. All development is done on 24x80 orange screen terminals that were purchased in 1969. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Edward | Great students who do extra-curricular learning on their own often branch out into other fields, such as the theatre, philosophy, fine arts, poli-sci, etc. Not much use for dynamically-linked libraries and IDEs there. ;-) |
| Fri 30 Jul | Tom H | Make sure it's not just a difference in jargon. They might've been using Visual Studio for years without every hearing the term IDE. Similar with static vs dynamic linking. A C++ programmer worries about that kind of thing; but someone who's good with Python/perl/php (and probably Java but I haven't used it much) wouldn't be concerned with the term, because (normally) everything is dynamically linked. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr Jack | I think when I started my first job I would have only known 'static/dynamic linking' and I'm not sure about that. I'd always used a text editor and a command line compiler before. And heard blocking/non-blocking as the terminology for modal/modeless (which I still think is pretty stupid terminology, especially as MFC's Modal dialogs are actually Modeless). |
| Fri 30 Jul | Matt B | As a recent college grad (2 months ago), let me provide my answer: IDE - yes, I would know this 'term'. I hesitate to really call it a term though since you could just replace 'IDE' with 'editor' in any possible sentence you'd actually use 'IDE' in and not lose any meaning. Modal dialog box - Nope. If you said 'dialog box' I'd obviously know what you mean but 'modal' throws that off. Statically vs Dynamically linked - I would think that you were talking about linked lists. This will make some of the above posters said, but I'm afraid most college's do not teach the difference (as described earlier) anymore. Some advanced students, and students from advanced schools, will know this, but not the majority. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Clay Whipkey | Here's something from the perspective of someone who as of yet has no experience with desktop programming, only web: I know what an IDE is, but I don't think its a big deal if someone doesn't know or hasn't heard the term. I've never heard of a 'modal' dialog box, but I would assume its something similar to a Message Box in VB, or an Alert() in javascript. All I am doing is breaking down the language used to describe it. 'Modal' would tell me that perhaps it could vary in its functionality based on some 'mode' the application is in like edit/read/etc. 'Dialog box' would tell me that its a box (or window) that will be communicating something, and probably asking for a response. That is just how I would attack the meaning of the term I wasn't familiar with in an interview. If I were just on my own and in front of a computer, I'd fire up google and get the real answer. I've heard of dynamicly linked (DLL's, right?), but I wouldn't know the textbook definition of static vs. dynamicly linked. However, I can take the same approach to making an educated guess (the first step before I would just go research it). Static would tell me that its probably hard coded to look for another file in a very specific location on the machine, and dynamic would tell me that the location of said file will depend on some input, either at installation or at runtime. Again, those are just guesses, and I would only guess like that if put on the spot in an interview. I'd be very leary of hiring someone who wouldn't at least be able to attack the unknown and make educated guesses. As long as the process by which they make the guess uses sound logic, they get the thumbs up. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Clay Whipkey | Oh, and I should mention that I have no college computer science or programming classes under my belt, so maybe my post won't help. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Throwaway | From Google: IDE: Intergrated Drive Electronics. A Hard disk drive with built-in electronics neccessary for use on a computer. Also refers to the PC INTERFACE to which disk drives connect. |
| Fri 30 Jul | grunt | Terminology doesn't matter much. The question is: Can these inexperieced programmers that you are interviewing do the tasks that you will be giving them? They may or may not know buzz terms or any terminology perhaps, but are they smart enough to catch on once you tell them what they are, and explain to them how they work? The other thing is, do you even have the time to explain it to them? If you throw those words at them, will they know how to figure out what they mean on their own? Will they know where to look (hopefully they know what 'google' is)? In my opinion, these are the questions you should be asking... |
| Fri 30 Jul | snotnose | > I think when I started my first job I would have only known When I started my first job IDEs didn't exist. You had to exit the editor to compile or link, and swap disks to start the debugger. The term Modal Dialog Box was intermixed with the contents of some baby's diaper. Dynamic linking may have existed in a research environment, but not for peons like me. We couldn't run 2 programs at once, it was pointless to even try dynamic linking. Jeez, I'm an old fart. |
| Fri 30 Jul | grunt | >Jeez, I'm an old fart. If they didn't exist, then the potential employers wouldn't know about them either. Therefore you can't compare what you had a million years ago with what there is now... |
| Fri 30 Jul | Steamrolla | Can you learn OO without being told about polymorphism? Can you learn about polymorphism without being told the difference between static and dynamic linking? So can the intervievee know anything about OO programming? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Karin | Could you please clarify that? In what way are linking and polymorphism related? |
| How would you silently submit a form? | Thu 29 Jul | Teller |
| Im working in ASP, but I dont think the platform matters... I want to pre-fill some form fields and submit them to another page (that will recognize them) without using an actual form--just server-side script without the client knowing. How would you create a request that was more than just the URL but also contained the values? I could swear Ive seen it done before, but Google isnt telling me. This is possible, isnt it? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Code Monkey | http://www.takempis.com/takidc/Submitcode.asp |
| Thu 29 Jul | Duncan Smart | ... ... ... |
| Fri 30 Jul | kc | One nifty little trick I use is having a 0 sized iframe which actually holds a copy of my form. Then, whenever someone edits a text box in the main form, a value is updated in the iframe form. Then, when the last box is populated or a mouseover happens, I submit the iframe form. It is totally invisible and this is how I do all my searching in our apps. It's a hack that gives you a multi-threaded web app. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Teller | Thanks for the replies, but they're all client side solutions. I was talking about preparing a request server-side, and submitting it to another page (the other page is on another site, actually!). But perhaps the on_load method is the only way. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Ged Byrne | Teller, As this tutorial demonstrates, you can access another URL in your ASP code using InetCtrls.Inet: http://www.4guysfromrolla.com/webtech/040600-1.shtml While this is mainly used to fetch stuff from other servers, you can also include a querystring in your request to pass information. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Teller | Still not useful to fake a form submit. But I did find this, which I think will do the job: How To Submit Form Data by Using XMLHTTP or ServerXMLHTTP Object: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;EN-US;Q290591&ID=KB;EN-US;Q290591 |
| Fri 30 Jul | Kalani | Teller, there's no reason to get the client to do that post for you if you'd rather not. It sounds like you want something like this: Client <--> Server A <--> Server B But other people are describing this: Server A <--> Client <--> Server B Depending on the languages and libraries you have access to, you ought to be able to submit the POST request to Server B from Server A directly. It's easy enough that you can do it if you just have access to a socket library. |
| Fri 30 Jul | Teller | Kalani, Exactly. I guess I was hoping I wouldn't have to hack the http protocol to get it done. On the bright side, it is my understanding that form element and values are just more text, name/value pairs...so it shouldn't be to horribly hard to figure out. Thanks everyone... |
| Salary Reviews | Thu 29 Jul | anon |
| What are your best rebuttals to the: We acknowledge your accomplishments beckon a merit raise but based upon industry averages and others in the company ... we cannot pay you more. Basically, that means: You DO deserve more, but we cant pay it to you because my HR report from salary.com says I shouldnt and it would put you above your own manager (or other managers in the company). Whats your response? You have pages of accomplishments affecting 80% of the products ... you really are good at what you do (and you love it; which means, youre rare). Outside of packing up (which is definitely an option); what can one do? My thoughts: - Invent a position to promote me into (thatll getcha more money; use salary.com as your guide; hehe, go ahead and make me a senior deenior super uber business analsyst systems architect). - Firebomb the place? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Funny guy | You can do one of two things; Grab your coat or your ankles.... |
| Thu 29 Jul | anon | Funny guy, Agreed . . . anything else? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Kenny | well, first off: nobody gets paid what they 'deserve'. you get paid depending on your leverage. so, the question you gotta ask yourself is: do i have the leverage to demand a higher salary? if the answer is no, then continue to increase your importance to the company. if yes, you can always *politely* suggest to them that if they think they can get someone of your abilities for the same price, then perhaps that's what they should do because its obvious that the company can't afford you. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Funny guy | Well, if this is a bigger company and your manager really is hog-tied by HR drones then the promotion thing might work. Where I work that takes time though so you would be looking at the same salary for at least a year. So you are down to two choices as I said before... Prove them wrong (the market is better than they think and you can get something better elsewhere but you have to be committed to leaving) or stay there and take it and prove them right. It really isn't an argument that you can win. |
| Thu 29 Jul | saberworks | Remember, if you threaten to leave if you don't give you more money, they will give you more money until they replace you with someone else (which will be sooner rather than later). You will end up "training" your replacement. |
| Thu 29 Jul | example | See if there's something they can give you instead of salary. The idea would be to ask for something that comes out of their monthly expense pile of money, and not the salary pile of money (you've got to play the budget game). Some possibilities are: - Health club membership. - Parking costs. - Vouchers for $50 of dry-cleaning each month. - Cool LCD monitor. - $500 in computer books |
| Thu 29 Jul | Rob VH | I think you are definitely on the right track with the idea of inventing a new position. A new not-easily-categorizable position. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Funny guy | Saber, exactly why I said that you have to be committed to leaving. If you go "See, I can get this much somewhere else so you were wrong please pay me this much." then you can pretty much start the counter on how many days you have left at the company. |
| Thu 29 Jul | dot for this | In the civil service world promotions for market salaries is called 'Grade Creep'. A department starts out with everyone a 'Clerk/Typist 1'. Ten years later everyone is a 'Clerical Support Specialist 4' because Clerk/Typist 1 pays less than Burger King. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | You asked for rebuttals. I have been in this situation a few times. the main thing I can say is that they are asses and when you push back on this issue, you can expect they will start working to dismiss you because you are a lose cannon, being aware of your worth. You might start influencing other employees as well. That could affect the executive bonuses if they have to give anybody raises. Because of this the FIRST thing you have to do RIGHT NOW, is get ready with another job for when they dismiss you. Or just leave to that job. Preparing for this, make a deal with your boss that since you won't get a raise but he loves your work, you want a really glowing written review. You wanth that so you can show it to your next employer and make it impossible for them to badmounth you or fire you with cause. Now, how do you respond to them once you have all this ready to go. Get your facts straight - you need to know the actual average salaries in your area. Probably the numbers they have are wrong, or were collected several years ago, or apply to someone with obviously different skills from you. You have to call them on this and get from htem in writing the salary survey they are using. Pay attention to the date it was taken! Lo,ok at every detail that is different from you. You be sure to point all that out in a written letter. Your approach here is that you are kindly and pleasantly correcting the outdated data they mistakenly applied to you and now that it is corrected your new salary is forthcoming. Your other point is that that data is for AVERAGE employees. That is for AVERAGE employees whe write THIRTEEN lines of code a day!!! How many do you write? Are you TEN TIMES more productive? I bet you are. Point out that if they want to get average results, they can pay average salaries. Superior results like you provide require superior salaries like the 75th or 90th percentile salaries that you have documented in salary surveys YOU found which you can prove are more credible. But you aren't going to provide superior results for an average salary. that wouldn't be fair. Hovewer, you are willing to compromise and provide average services if that is all they want. You'll be in for 8 hrs a day and you'll take a 2 hr lunch. During the day, you'll do your web shopping and newsgroups and then just before you leave you will write your 13 lines of code AND NO MORE. Since you are underpaid, you will be taking on a second job working at WarMart or at their competitors or at a cool startup founded by a friend because you need the money and it is not your fault that they are choosing to severely underpay their employees so you gotta do what you gotta do. Now, go do it and come back and tell us how it went! |
| Thu 29 Jul | Dennis Atkins | Oh and I agree with the stuff about looking for a better title that would justify a higher salary class, and also looking for perks valued at the $20,0000 or whatever it is you are underpaid. If you get this that is cool but it is unlikely I think. Hovever, don't let them jerk yor around. A decision on a new title or on perks can be done in 1 day. If it takes longer than that, give them a 24 hr deadline to respond. If they say no, then go forward with what I said. I they say maybe we are looking in to it, that's BS runaround, just get your resume out and get out of there. |
| Thu 29 Jul | kc | Easy, you say: 'Yes, that would be the salary of hiring someone new off the street, but what would be the price of bringing up their training and company-specific experience to *MY* level?' Actually, my company just negotiated a nice little benefit... If you are a Verizon customer (I am already), then you can get an 8% discount on monthly plans and a 12% discount on hardware. It's not bad... $1 off for every 12 spent on a plan and $1 for every 8 spent on hardware. It's not huge, but it's something. |
| Thu 29 Jul | bpd | 'It's not bad... $1 off for every 12 spent on a plan and $1 for every 8 spent on hardware. It's not huge, but it's something. ' But you have to _spend_ money to realize the 'benefit'. This reminds me of, 'The more you spend, the more you save.' |
| Thu 29 Jul | Code Monkey | >It's not bad... $1 off for every 12 spent on a plan and $1 for every 8 spent on hardware. It's not huge, but it's something. Really? I mean let us say you have a $48 plan and you save $4 on it...does that really float your boat? What next..that it is not bad you can take those cheesy office ballpens home? That they supplu free toilet paper in the restrooms? I would rather take a nice email or better still a certificate of appreciation than such 'perks'....atleast I can use that as additional leverage during my next salay review request or failing that for my next job. |
| Thu 29 Jul | TheGeezer | If the job market was better my response would be to walk. I mean, if they're not willing to compensate you appropriately for the skills and productivity you offer then they're bunch of tight-ars*d weasels. (On such a note, I wish there was an easy way to tell if a company behaved like this every time pay reviews were being performed. I'm sure if would affect a persons decision to join such a company...) |
| Thu 29 Jul | Kyralessa | At one place where I used to work, a manager tried to promote people so they'd get raises for good performance, but someone higher up kept holding them up. So finally the manager started adding overtime hours to their timesheets to bring them up to what they ought to be making. So you could try that. Just don't mention that the manager, his manager, and her manager all got fired. (On the other hand, most people's reaction was 'You got fired for _that_!?') |
| Thu 29 Jul | MilesArcher | Tell your boss you want more money. Tell him how much more in rough terms. Don't threaten. Don't say what you'll do if they don't do it. If they think you're valuable, they'll at least make an attepmpt to pay you. If they don't get you 80% what you ask for within six months, quietly start looking for a job. When you find one that is better take it. Don't take counter offers. Good luck. |
| Thu 29 Jul | David Heinrich | People get paid at their discounted marginal product, if they look around. Your discounted marginal product is the present value of what you can product for the company in the future. So, basically, the better you are, the more you get paid. If your getting paid below your discounted marginal product, then other companies can look and see that they could hire you at a larger salary, while still making a profit. This happens until your salary is bidded up to your discounted marginal product (DMP), if you put yourself on the open job market. Thus, if your sure that you're discounted marginal product is more than what you're getting paid (given you current level of productivity, would anyone pay you more than you get now?), then you are in a position to use that to get a higher salary. I have some notes from a lecture at the Mises Institute that touch on this: http://www.livejournal.com/users/dh003i/17997.html#cutid1 |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr Jack | Find a new job; any new job. Hand your notice in. Observe how the purse strings suddenly open in their desire to keep you. |
| Fri 30 Jul | kc | I'm already a Verizon customer, so getting the plan discounts don't cost me anything additional. And I never said that it was great. Though, our MIS chief went back and pointed out how much business we'll bring them if just our corporate staff switches over and his goal is to negotiate 2 free plan upgrades for employees. Ie. If you're on the 39.99 plan, you get the conditions of the 59.99 plan (2 bumps up) for the same price. They already do free in-network calling. |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.xndev.com (Matt H.) | 'Preparing for this, make a deal with your boss that since you won't get a raise but he loves your work, you want a really glowing written review' --- This is a good idea. Make it seem to the boss that you are creating leverage for a promotion. Two glowing 'greatly exceeds expectations' reviews in a row typically implies promotion material to HR. So the boss can give you a glowing review this year, and he doesn't have to do anything. It's an implied promise. He can 'forget', or just give you a 'exceeds expectations' next year, or a half dozen other things. So it's not risky to just give you the glowing annual review. If he's a good guy but really is being flamboozled by HR, he should be happy to do this. This is one thing to put in your arsenal other ideas: 1) Look for another job - but this is a last resort. There is an old expression 'If you work here for 10 years, someone probably owes you an apology for five of them.' If you bolt and run and the first wierdness, you may never get very far at any company. That said ... 2) I second the 'ask for perks' idea. How about every friday afternoon off to work on your writing, or an extra week's vacation a year, a promise to send you to a week's training this year? Get creative with the boss - some of these things can be done with no direct expense. If he isn't willing to even have the conversation, that tells you something about your percieved value. 3) You can contract at night, or, better yet, get other people to contract at night for you until you have enough repeat business to go independent. Good article on Angry Coder on this: http://www.angrycoder.com/article.aspx?cid=6&y=2004&m=7&d=26 4) Ask to go hourly. If you work overtime, that will either end you you'll get $$$. Another option is to cut back the # of hours you work to 35 or 30 - try to keep the full-time benefits, and go do contract work for somone else at a high hourly rate. Just the perception that you have other options might scare the boss or HR into reality. 5) Go independent contractor. Once you have some work lined up, you could say something like 'It's been great working here, but I think I'm going to try my hand as an entreprenuer. I would love to keep in touch, and even to have (this_company) as a client ...' If you can pull this off, you'll work less hours for more pay. 6) I second the take a hard look at what value you provide idea. Find ways to tie your work to revenue, so you can say 'yes, a programmer/analyst typically makes blah, but in my consulting role, I'm really more of a PRINCIPAL programmer/analyst ...' Move from code monkey to consultant = more $$$, even an internal consultant. 7) Live below your means. Save up $$. The less you feel like a wage slave, bound to your job with no options, the more leverage people will have to hold you down. 8) Write, teach, speak, consult. Good luck, |
| Fri 30 Jul | www.xndev.com (Matt H.) | I gotta start checking spelling and wording on my posts ... 'The less you feel like a wage slave, bound to your job with no options, the more leverage people will have to hold you down.' Should be the less you feel, the LESS leverage people will have to hold you down ... |
| Fri 30 Jul | bashful | Just find a better job and leave. No point in worrying about "proving" things to them. If for some reason you can't find a better job, accept the current pay until you can find a better job. |
| How to do testing? | Thu 29 Jul | Stimulate that Simulator |
| I was just reading this article here: Top Five (Wrong) Reasons You Dont Have Testers http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000067.html Where Joel takes pains to describe how it is necessary to have a testing department. I was just wondering if in fact Fog Creek has a testing department and how it works? I am in general interested in how testing is done at other organizations. At my company, the software that my team develops is used internally and doe not have a GUI interface (unix shop here). Basically it runs an engineering simulation on data provided using a text input file, and outputs the results to other text files. To know if the program is working as expected, you have to interpret the simulation results. Of course we have a set of scripts that helps to automate this process. Unfortunately we do not have dedicated testers. At some point I would like to introduce a GUI to the simulator so that the results can be visualized. However, this would be a huge step and Im not sure how one would start to test it. If the results were displayed on the screen in some sort of graphical format, how would you know its correct? Sorry if this seems a little oversimplified, Im not really allowed to talk about what I do. Anyway, I have no idea how one would go about testing a Windows/Mac/Unix program with a GUI interface. I would be indebted to anybody who could perhaps post a link to an article describing the state of the art of the testing process, or simply telling me how your company does it and what tools you use. There must exist some best practices of software testing. Perhaps somebody has a book recommendation? Thanks for your time! P.S. Ive also read this thread: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=75543 |
| Thu 29 Jul | patrick | i sent joel an email about what they have and he said 1 person is dedicated to testing. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Peter | 2 of the books I would recommend are: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471358460/ and http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/047135418X/ |
| Thu 29 Jul | schmoe | One thing that's useful in cases like this is to do some simple baseline tests. Manufacture a set of inputs, run your engine on them, and capture the outputs. Inspect the outputs by hand to see that they're right (or close enough). Write a test that runs with the same inputs and compares the output to the originally-captured output. You're not really testing correctness at this point, but this will flag any changes to your code that would change the output. Depending on the complexity of the transformation, you'll have to deal with false failures (where you'll have to go through the sanity check and re-dump some new 'expected' outputs), but it's something. As bugs crop up, you can either add the conditions necessary to reproduce them to your inputs or add new sets of inputs that reproduce the bugs. I did this on a past system. It was a pain, but the transformation process was very complex, and this was better than having no automated testing at all. (You can apply a similar approach for the visualization side of things, when you get there.) |
| Thu 29 Jul | Eric Debois | If the math is reversible, writing a proggie that does it backwards can help you catch round off errors and stuff like that. |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | > To know if the program is working as expected, you have to interpret the simulation results A _person_ has to do this? |
| Fri 30 Jul | no name | Sorry, I should have added something. Sounds remarkably like where I work (not regarding tests, but generally), where the engineers do lots of things manually because... well, I don't know actually. I have come up with numerous ideas as to why but none of them are complimentary. |
| Learning Curve for a New Grad | Thu 29 Jul | randy |
| I got my degree (B. Sc, Comp Sci) about 3 months ago and am still looking for some sort of development job but it hasnt been looking great so far. Most the job ads I see want something like 3+ years experience, but it doesnt look like theres a lot for fresh grads right now, at least in Canada. So Im curious, how much did people, who have been working in the industry for awhile already learn in their first couple years of their first development job? Does it require skill and smarts that is orders of magnitude above finishing University or is it still just that much of an employers market still? Any suggestions on how to break this no experience, no job cycle, or at least get someone to take a chance on me? Also does anyone think the entry level end of the market is going to reappear anytime soon? |
| Thu 29 Jul | no name | Work on interesting projects and add them to your CV. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Christopher Wells | > So I'm curious, how much did people, who have been working in the industry for awhile already learn in their first couple years of their first development job? I learned a lot (but my degree was Maths, so I knew little about computers before I started work ... just some BASIC). > Does it require skill and smarts that is orders of magnitude above finishing University or is it still just that much of an employers market still? It requires team-work; also exposure to technologies that you may not have learned to use at University. > Also does anyone think the entry level end of the market is going to reappear anytime soon? Some companies at least still hire temporary interns/summer students who haven't graduated yet. |
| Thu 29 Jul | MSHack | Let's start with the easy(?) question. The market for entry positions in the US will probably start in 2005 (sorry if that hurts). The economy, is growing but everyone is nervous a 9/11 like attack could throw us back into the nether world. Skills and smarts. I don't know you. You could have finished in the top or bottom 1%. You have a lot of theory, perhaps even skill, but that is like plowing the field. My father used to say that college proved you could learn, nothing more. He is more correct than I wished. In most cases, your entry level position will be bug fixing. This gets you used to the system and how coding is done. This will last 1 to 2 years in big organizations. Smaller ones don't have the time for that, so you will soon be on to projects. If you want to keep yourself from a heart attack, figure that it will be 2 to 4 years before you are doing any from scratch development work. It could happen sooner, but if you focus on that you lose the long term value of a career. Random thoughts: - The first three months are a waste for everyone. Don't let it get you down that nothing makes sense. - You don't know half of what you think you do. That's ok, until you speak. - When you speak pose it in the form of a question and you will get a good response. 'What do you think would happen if we...' Don't worry if the answer is 'Well, you land the shuttle right on Washington' Look up Edison's quote on failed tests. - You will screw up, bad. You will do something that crushes the system, kills a build and makes people work long hours to fix. People will define you by how you react. - no excuses - be there, even if it is only to make a food run - be sorry - Learn the business. While coding got you the job, the business will make you valuable. Take areas people don't want. Do production support. Handle the TPS reports :) - Listen to customers, this means ask a question and shut up. It sounds obvious, but we often feel the need to solve every problem. Listen and you may find the problem is not IT fixable. (That's ok) - What IT thinks is the value of the product is often very different than customers. - Never complain about an assignment. Do it well and be happy about it. People like that and remember you. You can also use it to get onto better work. - Always have a backup. Someone who can do what you do. Some people mistakenly believes this makes you easy to replace. They are wrong. It makes it easy for you to take that 'great' project when it comes along. - Smaller companies give you more exposure, but often suffer from the big fish in a small pond when you move on. - Big companies are entrenched. Picture pulling a buffalo out of a well and that is how some days go. But they also have the resources to do huge projects you might not see otherwise. - Try to switch companies after a few years. It good career exposure and you start to see that many bad ideas come from people who have only worked in one environment because they don't see 'it' coming. I could literally go on for hours, so my last piece is no when to stop. Good luck. |
| Thu 29 Jul | MSHack | D'oh and have someone proof read anything you are sending to large groups or up the food chain. They would catch know versus no. |
| Thu 29 Jul | MilesArcher | Where are you in Canada? There may be jobs in other cities (like Calgary) which is pretty much booming right now. It's booming with engineering work for the oil companies, but the rising tide is lifting many boats. |
| Thu 29 Jul | www.xndev.com (Matt H.) | Try Montreal Kitchen Systems (MKS, now, uh, 20/20 technologies) in Laval, Canada. :-) |
| Thu 29 Jul | anon | MSHack, Good words, my friend. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Kenny | 'Any suggestions on how to break this no experience, no job cycle, or at least get someone to take a chance on me? Also does anyone think the entry level end of the market is going to reappear anytime soon?' answering the 2nd question first: no, no time soon. i was a 3 yr dev. looking for an entry level pos. getting beat out by 5 yr devs. however, if your comp sci is at a credible U (waterloo/u of t), then you might have a big edge there... the best thing you can do right now is code. i think someone mentioned it before: employers want to see that you've coded all the bad code out of your system. create a big project for yourself, and start implementing it. its amazing what a big difference actually having something tangible to show can be at an interview... the next best thing you can do is read - magazines, books, whatever you can get your hands on. get as up to date as you can with the most current technologies. if an interviewer starts spouting the lingo, you wanna be able to act like you know what they're talking about (even though they probably don't)... lastly, maybe go for some certs. work towards an MCSD or somethin'. its mostly memorization, but you do learn a few useful things on the journey... most importantly: DO NOT STAND STILL. Still = death. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Kenny | (and one more thing: montreal = death!) |
| Thu 29 Jul | kc | I'm a trained engineer. I started developing little software projects in high school, continued throughout college, and am doing it fulltime now. If I knew a bit more back then, I would have tried to get involved in an Open Source project or two to start gaining a bit more experience earlier. |
| Thu 29 Jul | Hohoho | Kenny, How do you know Randy is in Montreal? |
| Thu 29 Jul | TheGeezer | Try and get work with a large corporate on some sort of graduate recruitment program. IMO, that's what you should aim for initially. I started my career working for one of the largest IT outsourcing companies in the world - that gave me plenty of scope to move around internally and work on a variety of projects. I'm not quite sure what the job market is like where you are but if you're willing to sell your soul to get a foot in the door somewhere, that should get your career kickstarted. Good luck! |
| Thu 29 Jul | Tom Vu | So I'm curious, how much did people, who have been working in the industry for awhile already learn in their first couple years of their first development job? Probably more than you learned in your entire college career. This depends on what and where you decide to work though. The people and the company make a huge impact on how you progress. |
| Thu 29 Jul | randy | I'm in Toronto right now, even though I'm willing to move pretty much anywhere. I have previously lived in Calgary. Whats the story on Montreal? |
| Fri 30 Jul | Mr Jack | The Games industry is generally more willing than the mainstream to hire no-experience grads. It's an awful place to work but it can get your foot in the door - moving from games to the mainstream is fairly easy if you have a degree. |
| user-interfaces should be user-defined | Thu 29 Jul | David Heinrich |
| Theres an interesting article titled Vis/Vaporware Interface Simulator. Basically, it argues that user-interfaces should be user-defined, not defined by programmers, so that they fit the users needs. This is a big problem in GNU/Linux, because there are so many different toolkits and environments, and this can generate an inconsistent look. However, it is just as much a problem in MacOS and Windows. Theres no reason why users should be tightly confined in a UI that the developer thought was best. Consider MacOS, which still to this day doesnt have window-tiling, and still has crappy keyboard support. The OS-design almost completely neglects those who have a disabiliy, thus have a difficult time using a mouse. Windows (in which most programs are almost fully keyboard capable, Alt-F etc) is slightly better. MacOSX does have full-keyboard accessibility, but thats still pretty bad (having to press CTRL-F2 to get the menu isnt intuitive...what users need is File with the F underlined, or go back to the old-days when just pressing F1 brought up the first menu). Other messes include window-management, a total disaster on both Mac and Windows, though slightly better on Windows. Ion has a partial solution to this, with tabbed windows, preventing any overlapping. Of course, some users may not want that. All of this is where the Vis article comes in. As different users will have different preferences, theres no reason why the user-interface should be hard-coded. Right now, Im sitting in MacOSX using Internet Explorer. Theres really no reason why the buttons should be hard-coded into this program. What would happen under the Vis scheme is that the software would say make a back button, and make a file menu, and they would be generated based on my preferences. For a more detailed explanation of how this would work, see: http://modeemi.fi/~tuomov/vis/vis-paper/#foot60 |
| Thu 29 Jul | Edward | What happens when you sit down at my computer, and my preferences are wildly different from yours? |
| Thu 29 Jul | Iago | Maybe you could carry your preferences around somehow (on a USB keychain, or perhaps uploaded to an internet server)? As long as it's easy to swap settings somehow, heavy customisation need not be a major problem. |
| Thu 29 Jul | David Heinrich | Iago's comment addresses the above concern. However, even with that aside, what would most likely happen is that there would be some 'generic' layouts -- WindowMaker, WindowsXP, MacOS9, MacOSX, KDE, GNOME, Ion, BeOS, RISCOS, Terminal, etc -- which many people would use. Individuals could simply select their desired interface when sitting down at another machine. Any computer likely to be used by many people would most likely have the 'big ones' installed. Of course, my private laptop would only have the UIs installed that I want, and if anyone who sits down at it has a hard time, that's just tough -- they can find themselves someone else's charity then :-). Furthermore, I think that it is categorically more important that the computers individuals use on a daily basis (which are their own laptop and desktop PCs) be specifically suited to their needs, than to consider uniformity accross all computers. |
| Thu 29 Jul | AnonAnonAnon | User interfaces should not be user defined, nor defined by programmers. Users in the case of UI carry as much baggage as programmers, it just looks different. MS spends millions on behavior studies and psychologists as people often confuse easy, efficient, and productive. In addition, they perform usability studies to see if it meets the objective of balance. If UI was left to the user, we would all be looking at 3270 screens because they are familiar and comfortable or virtual reality because they saw it on TV. If left to programmers, we will all have fully customizable, video driven interfaces, with so many feature it would be impossible to know what to do. All things in balance Grasshopper |
| Thu 29 Jul | christopher baus (www.baus.net) | emacs |
| Thu 29 Jul | David Heinrich | And look at what MS comes up with: crap like Clippy. Even now, has MS realized the vast inferiority of their design and started utilizing the edges of the screen? No. If they had, they'd swallow their pride and start working towards something like Apple's universal menu-bar (btw, Apple could take a lesson from themselves and make a universal button-bar). All of the billions these idiots have spent on UI, you'd think they'd realize that the 'ancient' paradigm of pressing F1 for the first menu is alot easier than pressing Alt-F. Really, what I should have said, however, is 'user-chosen'. I certainly don't think that every user would precisely define his or her interface. Rather, specialized projects developing for people with different needs would produce interfaces (e.g., GNOME, Ion, WindowMaker, Mac's UI, etc), and users would choose those which best suited them. The other point of this kind of system, though, is that (especially important in the Linux-world) it would make all applications completely consistent with one another. It would also make all applications consistent in the Apple and Windows worlds, as well (since control over the UI would not be in the hands of those writing e-mail programs, web-browsers, etc). However, the idea that users should be stuck with a one-sized fits all interface is wrong, because different users have different needs. The mouse-driven model of the MacOS and Windows is woefully inadequate for those who are handicapped. Furthermore, even for those who aren't, being able to efficiently navigate from the keyboard is much faster. You are right, though...many people confuse easy to learn with easy to use with productive. There are many programs that are easy to learn (thus easy to use), but that aren't very productive. There are also some programs that aren't very easy to learn, but are very easy to use and are very productive. |
| Thu 29 Jul | derek | I wouldn't go as far as saying UI's should be designed by users, but rather UI's should /not/ be designed /without/ feedback from users. The ability to design good UI's appears not to be something many programmers can do, though not necessarily because they're programmers. And it also presents a conflict of interest: a good |