| last updated:16 Feb 2004 14:01 UK time |
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| JOS Statistics - Recent Comments (Comments added for week ending Sun 15 Feb 2004) | View Other Weeks |
| Down with WYSIWYG? | Sun 15 Feb | \documentclass{article} |
| Ive been using LATEX (la-tek) lately to produce some nicely typeset documents. The reason Im using it is because it is free. I do not wish to pay $900~ for QuarkXPress or Adobe InDesign. I also do not want to use cheaper page layout or word processing software like MS-Publisher or MS-Word. I must say that I am amazed at how easy it is to use LATEX. It took me maybe a minute to read the documentation on how to start a basic document. From there it is simply typing the document in a normal ascii text editor, running it through LATEX and then viewing or printing it out. The output is fantastic. I was amazed at how much better it is that Word or Publisher (or any Windows product I have used). The best part is that I concentrate more on what Im doing because I type the article first and then mark it up using LATEX. Theres really not much to it. Now maybe Im an exception to the rule, but the way I see it is that no WYSIWYG tool can even come close to the ease of use and the quality produced by LATEX. This is a phenomenon I see often. Someone tries to use a WYSIWYG tool to perform a task and cant quite get it right. Is this the fault of the tool? Perhaps the tools interface is not quite as accomodating as it should be and that may be the reason the tool does not work for the task. I believe that the interface just gets in the way sometimes even for experienced users. When marking up text you have to be able to visualize what you want done and how you want the output to look. This may be hard for some and easy for others. Personally, I know what I want and I can easily visualize it. This may be the reason non-visual tools work for me. I regularly code HTML without WYSIWYG tools. I can honestly say that I have never used a decent visual editor for HTML. To sum up all this rambling I would say that WYSIWYG tools generally produce lower quality output and IMO are basically very clunky tools to use. (To be fair, Im not damning all WYSIWYG tools, as I do use my fair share of them and of course using the right tool for the right job does come first whether its WYSIWYG or not.) |
| Sun 15 Feb | Mike Swieton | I'd have to agree TeX and friends seem extremely powerful, if you're willing to learn it. It doesn't really seem quite the appropriate tool for more complex layouts, not because it's not powerful enough, but because I don't want to figure out how ;) I do use it for all my papers, because I don't require anything complex. |
| Sun 15 Feb | mb | many people think visually. and literally. can't do that abstraction thing. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Rob Walker | I don't know if it is related to (La)TeX directly, but I can tell whenever I see a postscript file of (typically) a technical report that was authored in TeX. The layout may be fine, but the quality of the output always seems poor when printed (office class HP laser printers). The font spacing doesn't seem right. Anyone else notice this or know which tool in the food chain is producing the degradation in quality? |
| Sun 15 Feb | Joel Goodwin | I remember putting together my PhD thesis via LaTeX, using a combination of MiKTeX and WinEdt32 on my PC. Latex is certainly nice and speedy when you get used to it, but after typing X million pages you do have to go tracking down all those macro errors. (It also distances the proofreading and entry processes - I am not sure whether that is a bad thing or a good thing.) And the graphical placement stuff is a pain sometimes, it's a slow process getting something in your head to work out through the TeX macro language. (aaargh why won't it go on the same line) It's a lot better than HTML/CSS though - at least you don't have browser incompatibilities! |
| Question for Florida Residents | Sun 15 Feb | Marlin |
| I just moved to Florida and was wondering from those that live here what are the dress norms for interviews and jobs in the IT sector in this area of the country? I ask because even in winter its f**king hot. Thanks. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Trying to write this book. | I can't see hot weather being a factor in allowing for leniancy(sp) in interview dress. I would think most places would have air conditioning anyway. Dress how you think it is appropriate for the place you are applying at. Disclaimer: I don't live in Florida. Just voicing my 2 cents. |
| Sun 15 Feb | MSHack | I do live in Florida. Dress for Success. What mode you will where _once_ you become an employee is very different from getting the job. Like a wedding or a funeral, dress to show respect for the other person |
| Uses for a PDA | Sun 15 Feb | A non-PDA user |
| I am a geek, and I love gadgets. However, I dont own a PDA. Suprised? Well, I cant seem to come up with any good uses for it, so I never bought one. I searched on JoS forum to see if I can find any related topics, and I did find one. It is from 2 years ago. People discussed uses for PDAs. Here is the link if you care to read it in its entirety. If you dont, dont worry. I will be summarizing its content. http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=3108&ixReplies=24 At the time, most people had the same experiences as me w.r.t PDAs. They are cool for sure, but are they really necessary? I personally dont think so, but thats my opinion. In the old thread, Meldroc (Saturday, February 16, 2002) has all the uses of a PDA that I can think of. Here they are: (1) Calendar/scheduling This is neat, but I am not busy enough to need a PDA to keep track of my schedule. (2) Alarm clock functionality Well, most watches do this. Even the cool looking (non digital) ones. (3)To Do lists. I personally use pen and paper. Do I *really* need a $300 tool to go to the local grocery store? As for ideas/long term goals, once again pen and paper works for me. (4) Contact lists (electronic Rolodex) This might be one good use, but I dont usually need it too often. Once again, pen and paper is cool. Entering this information into the PDA at a meeting/convention is the worst nightmare. If you are near a PC, then its cool, but then again a PC already has this functionality. No need for a PDA. (5) Memo Pad. Pen and paper anyone? (6) Password safes Pen and paper anyone? :) (7) Mapping software Well.. This one is nice but hard to read on a tiny screen. What do you think? (8) Calculator I have my own super duper fancy calculator which my PDA cannot possibly touch. (9) Mini web browser Once again, small screen is an issue for me... Not to mention the expensive service. (10) Games This one is in every field. Gaming is cool and makes a ton of money for everyone, but I probably should spend my time more productively. So this feature would not be a motivation for me. These days I guess you can use your PDA for playing MP3s, taking pictures, e-mailing, etc... There you have it folks. So now, please let me know if anything has changed in 2 years since the old thread I put a link for above. Does anyone know of any other cool, great, unbelieveable uses for a PDA or a Pocket PC other than the ones mentioned here? Your answer may include any new features, any software you can purchase, and any hardware that you can attach to your PDA/Pocket PC that extends its capabilities. By the way, there is a reason I am asking for your opinion and lets just say it is not because I am planning to buy a PDA! ;) Thanks for your time! |
| Sun 15 Feb | C Rose | I used to have a Psion Series 5mx, and used it all the time. I traded it in for a Palm Vx, and instantly regretted it. Among other things, the Palm alarm was really quiet -- the Psion could wake me up. If you can find a Psion on eBay, buy it -- they're lovely. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Andrew Burton | I think "smart phones" and PocketPC's have replaced PDA's for the most part. |
| Sun 15 Feb | PDA Guy | PDA's make excellent front-ends for headless embedded systems. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Matthew Lock | The great thing about todo lists on PDAs is that they automatically resort when you chang the priority or due date of a task. If you have a couple of hundred items in your todo list, this is really nice. No need to spend $300 on a PDA by the way. The lowest priced palms are less than $100, and for just calendering and todo lists they are more than good enough. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Prakash S | other than all the things u mentioned, I use mine to record quick notes-to-self. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Sam Livingston-Gray | The two primary reasons I carry my PDA everywhere I go are (1) to provide for the rare occasion when I need a phone number or email address on the go, and (2) to compensate for my abysmally bad memory. Of these, (2) is more important by far. I can remind myself of the few TV/radio shows I actually care about, set a recurring alarm to remind me to leave the library wifi network and go to class (I've forgotten to go, and more spectactularly, I've forgotten to take a final exam), and I can actually make the leap from thinking, 'Oh, I should call [Joe Schmoe]' when I'm on the bus to actually doing it a day or two later when I know they'll be around. Of course, if you can actually remember things like your coworkers' names, a PDA may not do you as much good as it does me. I might like a Tungsten C for its wireless capability, and if I had it to do over again, I might choose a model with a thumb keyboard instead of my Graffiti-based Palm Vx, but aside from that, a sub-$100 model will easily do everything I need it to. (Although as a bonus, my Vx has low enough power consumption that it only needs charging every few weeks; I lost data on my original PalmPilot because -- say it with me now -- I forgot to change the batteries in time.) |
| Sun 15 Feb | EAW | I use mine only for the address book. I find it very useful to have complete contact info for everyone, and i keep it in my bag just for that purpose. Also, being able to backup and save contact info is a nice change from carefull guarding my Little Black Book (which the palm replaced). Now, I got it second hand (and free), so I don't know if I would have paid for it to use it only for contact info. Probably not |
| Sun 15 Feb | MSHack | I have to concur with others, my uses are: - Address book - Meeting alarms - To-Do w/alarms - Minor notes - Ebooks for my road trips (see http://www.baen.org/) - Password safe (http://www.iliumsoft.com/site/ew/ewallet.htm) A notepad would work except for the password safe (and Ebooks). A notepad is a VERY bad password safe. I use ewallet with full encryption and it syncs to my desktop. If the PDA is lost, it will be near impossible to get at the list. As for $300, forget that. Go for the lowest cost model that is rechargable. I love my palm Vx, which you can now get on Amazon for about $80. |
| Sun 15 Feb | A non-PDA user | First of all, thank you for your feedback so far. Please note that you may also comment on Pocket PCs. I think I meant to refer to a Pocket PC when I said it costs $300. I am not very price-aware really. If I made a mistake about that, I apologize. How about any add-on modules? I know the early PDAs had wireless modem modules, but this is obviously useless at this point with PDAs mostly having this functionality built in. I also came across this one guy mentioning that he uses his PDA to keep track of his finances (money and stocks), local movie times, weather, his residence history, his weight log program, his diet program, etc.. For the right person, these are all great uses. I have a specific use in mind, and I was wondering if anyone is going to mention it. If not, maybe I have a winner. I looked it up on Google but can't seem to find anything similar. Anyway, please keep the uses coming... :) Thanks again for your time. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Robert Jacobson | With the new Palm and Windows smartphones (especially the models with mini keyboards) they're viable as email clients -- basically as alternatives for Blackberry-type devices. They're not the best for composing long messages, of course, but they look adequate for reading email and composing short replies. There are also various third-party software products that can use the wireless data connection to keep your smartphone constantly synched with your desktop Outlook, so you don't need to use a docking cradle. That looks very handy -- you can clean our your inbox during your morning commute, for example. On the 'fun' side of the equation, you can use the wireless connection to access streaming media. This gets us one step closer to the ideal of the 'universal jukebox' where you can use a handheld device to download and play music instantly, instead of having to preload it like with a traditional MP3 player. http://www.vikrampant.com/treo600/pocket_tunes_and_streaming_audio.php Also, there are lots of third-party apps for various niche uses. For example, there's a listing of apps for Treo smartphones here: http://www.handspring.com/software/ |
| Removing Programs that Automatically Start Win XP | Sun 15 Feb | Prarie Dog |
| How do I prevent programs from loading automatically when I re-boot Win XP? I downloaded Quicktime - and a little icon now appears on the right side of my task bar - i.e. next to the clock. It is very irritating as I find my computer now takes a longer time to re-boot. Is there an easy way to manage this? Also will new programs that I download mostly attempt to do this? Thanks, PD |
| Sun 15 Feb | Rob Walker | There are a number of utilities that will help manage this. I use the freeware 'autoruns' from sysinternals: http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/autoruns.shtml It will list the program registered in all the places software can hook to run on start up -- and there are an amazing number of them! |
| Sun 15 Feb | somebody | Autoruns is good for identifying and removing the autorun entries for applications that do this but it won't work with particularly offensive applications such as QuickTime. If you delete the entry that autoruns QuickTime, QuickTime will add it back the next time you run it. My solution for this is simple -- don't use QuickTime. If you insist on using QuickTime, you can solve the problem by finding qttask.exe in the QuickTime install location (usually C:\Program Files\QuickTime) and deleting or renaming it (preferably to something appropriate such as QuickTimeSucks.exe). Fortunately, most software that you install won't do things like this. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Jan Derk | Check out the start menu and this registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run There could be some apps in the current user key too, but most place themselves in the local machine one. |
| Sun 15 Feb | www.marktaw.com | I never get the quicktime taskbar thing, and I use quicktime once a week at least. I may have had to change a setting in quicktime AND remove it from it's startup entry, but I don't get it. Good luck. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Insert half smiley here. | Use your h4XX0R skills to untick the box marked "Quicktime System Tray Icon' in the Quicktime preferences. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Prakash S | http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml |
| Sun 15 Feb | =DNX= | You can also run 'msconfig.exe' to manage your startup programs! Goto 'Start' menu, and then 'Run...' Type 'msconfig.exe' and everything will be in there. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Gamut | >Check out the start menu and this registry key: >HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cu>rrentVersion I believe the full path should be: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce |
| Sun 15 Feb | Gamut | >Check out the start menu and this registry key: >HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Cu>rrentVersion I believe the full path should be: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Run and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\ CurrentVersion\ RunOnce |
| Sun 15 Feb | Wayne | To stop this from happening in the first place, remove all but READ permissions from the registry keys that were mentioned. Occasionally, an installer will complain so you'll have to remember that you did that. |
| Free PC MIDI Sequencer Recommendation Sought | Sun 15 Feb | John Topley (www.johntopley.com) |
| As per the subject line. Nothing fancy, I just want to be able to do basic editing of standard MIDI files. Thanks. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Eric Debois | This might fit the bill: http://www.jazzware.com/cgi-bin/Zope.cgi/jazzware/ Otherwise, you might want to ask at a place like http://www.kvr-vst.com Kvr also has a serch engine for music software, but its geared towards softsynthesis and audio recording. If you feel like spending a buck I can recommend Tracktion. ( http://www.rawmaterialsoftware.com ) Its a full blown audio/midi sequencer for the unconventional price of 80 bucks. It works like a charm too. |
| Knowing you can get even ...Priceless | Sun 15 Feb | Priceless |
| Amex has been caught getting ready to offshore a lot of jobs but apparently they know that if they tell the folks, those folks can screw the systems. http://www.computerworld.com/managementtopics/outsourcing/story/0,10801,89943,00.html Its killing me, it really is. |
| Sun 15 Feb | NotesSensei | A German saying goes 'Die Geister die ich rief, werd ich nun nimmer los' (= I can't get rid of the deamons, I've called before). Globalisation cuts both ways (sitting on the other end, in Asia I see it differently). I left Europe, since it felt OLD world... The US so far has only benefitted from globalization trends. Since everything seeks a balance it was only a question of time until it fires back. On an individual basis it seems unfair, on a global basis it is not only logical but also predictable. India and China have a talent pool together 10 times bigger than the US and the educational systems are catching up fast. Since Multinationals are not responsible for any geographical region, but to their shareholders (who are mostly American (?)), they MUST, following their own rules and market demands, switch to the cheapest provider of service. The best reaction: what can be done to raise living standards in Asia until the price advantage is gone? There is a chaninging world approaching, brace for impact.. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Priceless | Dear NotesSensei, The issue in this post is not about whether it's good or bad. That has been gone over here relentlessly. The issue is that these corporate jerks have been exposed and realise they're vulnerable. Usually they arrange things so they're not. The issue is that they're vulnerable, and they're aware of it. Should the victims get even? |
| Sun 15 Feb | NotesSensei | Sorry Priceless,
seems, not being a native English speaker , I missed your point. What an excellent question! On one hand revenge for the business dishonesty seems justified and surly would taste sweet. On the other hand, you only would accelerate the move and seed more poison in the workplace. Here we would say: Create bad Karma. And bad Karma leads to suffering.
The Buddha says: you pick the level of you suffering yourself. So it is you call. From your comment I would conclude, that you are VERY angry on the business guys (what I totally understand and have expericences myself too). This too is suffering and taking revenge doesn't end it. Ending anger can be achieved by cultivating the mind and developing compassion with the people that made you angry (I wish I could that everytime |
| Sun 15 Feb | Koz | Taking the revenge would be satisfying, but if it ever got linked to your name, you'd never work again. That said, if there's a bunch of you getting 'shafted', I'd probably think about it. Too many suspects, no real evidence. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Insert half smiley here. | "Even"? Doubtful. You screw the company, they go under, you are out of a job. It's not clear how this differs from the alternative, unless your motive is simple pettymindedness. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Insert half smiley here. | (In capitalist society, company screws YOU!) |
| Sun 15 Feb | I Hate Whiners | 'In capitalist society, company screws YOU' Yeah, because providing you with a paycheck for working a measly 40 hours a week is such a fucking burden for you to bear. I wonder how the North Koreans feel about the absence of capitalism in their labor markets... |
| Sun 15 Feb | Laurel | They have a choice. Earn a dollar a month, or eat a bullet. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Insert half smiley here. | Actually, I work 35 hours a week. And, yes, in capitalist society, company does screw you. They send your job overseas, and you are out on the streets. I believe the various meanings of the word 'screw' (v.tr.) encompass this. My point was that anyone who expects anything different is... well... Thank you for backing up my point :) |
| Sun 15 Feb | Priceless | The company would go under? I think not. No, you would just get a few smarmy guys on six or seven figure salaries being a bit uncomfortable for a while. The productive way to handle this would what any real profession would do - use the power to negotiate an acceptable solution. No wonder the IT work situation is in such dire straits. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Inidan Developer in India | I mean no offence and In all seriousness, why fret? Just as we of the lesser God did, why don't you go where the jobs are? Its not as if the jobs are disappearing. Just that jobs are moving from locale A to locale B. We moved from villages to towns to the cities to the metro to the 'el dorados'. Any problems in you doing the same? Regards KayJay |
| Sun 15 Feb | Chris Tavares | Indian immigration rules make it impossible for Americans to move to where the jobs are going. Not to mention that we spoiled Americans are used to little things like reliable power, clean water, due process of law, public officials who aren't blatantly corrupt... little things like that. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Sum Dum Gai | It's a very impersonal attitude to expect people to just up and leave their family and friends because some company decides they can save a few bucks if you work in India. And what if your partner works in some other field that they've decided to outsource to China? It just doesn't work. You can't expect people in general to be able to follow the work. Even if you remove any immigration factors, the human factors make it not at all practical. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Huh? | 'Not to mention that we spoiled Americans are used to little things like reliable power, clean water, due process of law, public officials who aren't blatantly corrupt... little things like that. ' Picky..picky...picky. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Prakash S | Chris, I do know a couple of Americans on work visa in India. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Curious | Just curious, if an American goes to India on a work visa, what caste does he go into? If it's the lower castes, do they have to bathe in the public sewer or the Ganges or whatever that is? Do they have running water/plumbing and electricity, etc? |
| Let Java Go. | Sun 15 Feb | JD |
| I think its a very well written article by Eric on why Sun should loosen its control on Java. He explains this by giving solid examples. Check http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/let-java-go.html It makes me rephrase Joels wordings in one of his article, It is very important for you to decide whether you are creating APPLICATION or creating PLATFORM. JD http://www.phpkid.org |
| Sun 15 Feb | NotesSensei | Well said. I second the call! :-) stw |
| Sun 15 Feb | Craig | I believe they will annouce the open sourcing of Java just after the press conference by MS on the open sourcing of Windows. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Michael Sica (michaelsica.com) | one thing i like about Java being owned by one company is that you do not have forks and different variations. i'm not talking about J2SE, J2EE, J2ME. i mean, there aren't 4 different versions of the API for the entriprise level stuff that is currently handled by J2EE. i know there are container specific stuff, but overall Java is Java. |
| Sun 15 Feb | MT | The ingratitude of these open source advocates is just unbelievable. Sun has done more for open source than anyone. You probably have to go back to the Medici to find a company that has freely dispensed as much intellectual capital as Sun. In every way that counts Java is already open. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Mike Treit | Eric destroys any credibility he might have had by comparing share price instead of market capitilization, thus showing he has no idea what he is talking about when he implies Red Hat is doing better than Sun in the market. The rest of the article is hardly better: dragging out a SUN business move from 1984 (the NFS standardization) and implying, without backing it up, that it is analogous to releasing Java in today's business environment is just weak. Sorry, this is not a particularly well-written or compelling piece. |
| Sun 15 Feb | C Rose | I think that open-sourcing would weaken Java (and invite Microsoft to 'pollute' it, as were trying to do). It is really important that there is a standard to which implementations must conform in order to be considered Java. The open-source model is great in certain situations, but what it has so far failed to deliver (in general) is good user interfaces and good documentation. The good UIs and docs that exist for OS projects invariably come from corporate involvement. Unless you have the resources to do user testing (even most companies don't), or technical writers who can easily interact with the developers (technically possible for all via the net, but does it happen?), you're unlikely to produce a decent UI or a decent set of docs. How many open-source apps have you used where the Help system turned up a blank page, where there wasn't a manual available, and you had to rely on the goodwill of the developers? (Actually, ask yourself that same question about low-cost Windows software.) Java's UI system (Swing) isn't great, but it isn't terrible either. You can turn out decent apps with Java. There is a wealth of documentation for it from Sun (just as there is for the MS languages on MSDN). I just don't think the open-source world would be able to deliver the goods in this case. You need a benevolent dictator. |
| Sun 15 Feb | T. Norman | The divergence of vendor-specific extensions and variations in J2EE servers is evidence that Java itself would get hijacked in different directions if Sun were to "set it free". |
| Amazon review scams (not again) | Sun 15 Feb | Tony Chang |
| Well once again this board is precogniscent. Recall the recent discussion on untrustworthy amazon reviews. Now its official: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/14/technology/14AMAZ.html >John Rechy, author of the best-selling 1963 novel City of Night and winner of the PEN-USA West lifetime achievement award, is one of several prominent authors who have apparently pseudonymously written themselves five-star reviews, Amazons highest rating. Mr. Rechy, who laughed about it when approached, sees it as a means to survival when online stars mean sales. >That anybody is allowed to come in and anonymously trash a book to me is absurd, said Mr. Rechy, who, having been caught, freely admitted to praising his new book, The Life and Adventures of Lyle Clemens, on Amazon under the signature a reader from Chicago. And he is unrepentant as well! |
| Sun 15 Feb | Norrick | Surely this can't be a shock to anyone. What I really want to know is...did Joel give his own book positive reviews? ;) |
| Sun 15 Feb | Egor Shipovalov | There's a comment on Slashdot from a guy who claims he ran Amzon's review system in 1997. He says that even then the scam review problem was so serious they had to develop a system to manually check all reviews. And he doubts this system is still in place given today's volume of reviews. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Dennis Forbes | For similar astroturfing, check out some of the reviews posted to IMDB. While there are strangely people who like horrible movies (like American Pie 3), there are certain reviews that just reek of being the industry trying to get the consumer to give the movie the benefit of the doubt. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Joel Spolsky | The problem isn't limited to >anonymous< reviews. Many professional movie reviewers working at second-tier media will give gushing reviews to the very worst movies. Why? They're hoping that the movie will get such bad reviews that when the newspaper ad for the movie goes out, it will be forced to use their review, the only good one, for a quote. Do this often enough and people will start to recognize your name, which is important for a movie critic's career. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Nick | It's not limited to Amazon reviews either. It extends to the reviews on the jacket covers. People like Tom Peters, Ken Blanchard, et al. will endorse a book for a nominal fee. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Robert Jacobson | I just love the apparent competition to be the '#1 reviewer' -- the article makes it sound like a catfight. The current top reviewer is Harriet Klausner, who manages to review two books every day. (She claims she's a speed reader... yeah, right.) Almost all of her reviews follow the same formula -- write two paragraphs giving a quick synopsis of the plot, followed by a paragraph of effusive praise. She gives every book four or five stars. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-reviews/-/AFVQZQ8PW0L/ref=cm_aya_rev_all/102-6543394-4745701 If these are the 'best' (at least, most popular) reviews on Amazon, I've lost just about all respect for its reviews system. But I have to admire Amazon's business model, getting all of these people to contribute so much content for free. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Robert Jacobson | Also found a creepy Wired article about her: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,53488,00.html 'She tries to establish trust with readers by following a strict set of rules for herself. She never deliberately criticizes an author and she doesn't accept gifts or money when writing about a book.' Good for her. I hate it when reviews say anything critical. :-/ |
| Sun 15 Feb | Name withheld out of cowardice | Joel: It's actually worse than you say. The term Roger Ebert uses for it (Though I don't know if he originated it) is 'quote whore'. Apparently what happens is movie critics are invited on junkets. The movie companies pay for all kinds of crap like hotels and then actually provide a lits of quotes for these critic to pick from. By know we all know that if the only reviewer on the poster is one we've never heard of (or the guy from Rolling Stone), the movie sucks ass. I actually think a good trick would be to use mainstream respected critics quotes on the poster either way out of context or just with the assumption that people see the name in large type but ignore the quote, assuming ti is good. 'This Movie Sucked' - ROger Ebert |
| Sun 15 Feb | www.marktaw.com | Her name slips off my tongue, but the dustjacket for one book quoted the NY Times... That is, an ad she took out of the NY Times. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Jan Derk | And then they only caught those that weren't smart enough to create an alias to write the fake reviews. The older I get, the more convinced I am that Hiaasen is not writing fiction. |
| US employment | Sun 15 Feb | Ryan Sil |
| I have a bachelors in engineering from India and an MS in Computer Science from the US. I have worked as a Systems Analyst/Programmer both in India and the US. I was recently fired from my US job very badly citing professional incompetency only after 3 months. 1.If my remove my recent experience from my CV and say that I was unemployed for that period, I would be obstructing the truth.But I feel that hiding my firing incident would improve my chances of getting hired.Is this okay? 2. Also Im currently working in a reputed software MNC in India-what are the chances of getting a perm/contract to perm position in the US thru telephonic interviews from India? I have a green card and do not require sponsorship. Thanks in advance. |
| Sun 15 Feb | qu | Wasn't this exact post question asked last week? |
| Sun 15 Feb | Aussie Chick | Oops, not 'qu'. Just a tab and a typo and pressed 'post' before I looked. |
| Sun 15 Feb | NotesSensei | Ryan, it is not unusual that IT pros work on short term contracts. So can keep the employment in your CV. You don't need to state the reason for the short term. However every failure offers an unique opportunity to improve yourself. Analyze what happend and what lessons you can learn from that. Try not to put the blame on anyone (your employer or you), but look what expectations were created on both sides, how they were created and how they were not met subsequentially. It could be (work) culture related. Take that chance seriously, failing to learn your lesson will impact your career much more than the three month. Hth :-) stw |
| Sun 15 Feb | NotesSensei | Btw. Our corporate policy here is to hire people only after a personal interview (how you otherwise would apply the Spolsky test requirement of letting a developer write some code during the interview). This helps us to avoid 'chemical dislikes' too. :-) stw |
| Sun 15 Feb | Give it up already | Yep, the OP's question was asked here: http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=112846&ixReplies=17 and there: http://community.hotjobs.com/hj-tech/messages/?msg=4105 Dude, wtf?! Are you just waiting to hear what you want to hear, or what? |
| Sun 15 Feb | no name | Google for 'Ryan Sil' returns as the #2 hit: 'But I feel that hiding my firing incident would improve my chances of getting hired.Is this okay? ..' So you can figure that prospective employers will know about it. |
| Sun 15 Feb | no name | * Unless it's a joe job, in which case you are a low-down lyin' ... |
| Sun 15 Feb | Curious | what is a joe job? |
| Sun 15 Feb | no name | 'what is a joe job?' A way to slander someone. For example, sending spam 'from' someone you dislike, or posting damaging information in a forum while pretending to be that person. |
| Sun 15 Feb | FullNameRequired | its gotta be a deliberate smearing campaign...there is no other explanation (unless we want to accept that the OP just plain likes the attention.) I wonder whether there is some way for us to get Joel to remove the earlier threads as well as this one. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Curious | Got it. I agree: looks like a smear campaign to me too. These threads should be deleted. |
| How do you make your customers rethink... | Sat 14 Feb | NotesSensei |
| When going through requirement specifications most of the time I encounter processes, that could be optimized with the available technologies. However I find it very difficult to get the customers off the Das haben wir schon immer so gemacht, wo kaemen wir dahin wenn wir es aendern (Ive always done it that way, what would happen if we change). My Granny-in-law contributed a good wake-up story: http://www.wissel.net/__48256D620048177D.nsf/plinks/SHWL-5VH6GC What is yours? :-) stw |
| Sat 14 Feb | Philo | Your granny said 'Error : HTTP Web Server: Lotus Notes Exception - Entry not found in index'? Philo |
| Sun 15 Feb | Koz | The forum's added some weird character to the end of the URL. try: http://www.wissel.net/__48256D620048177D.nsf/plinks/SHWL-5VH6GC |
| Sun 15 Feb | FullNameRequired | interesting, I was told a very similar story by someone else recently.
Based in the western world it was about roasting chicken, a wife was in the habit of cutting the chicken in half to do this.
etc etc etc
|
| Sun 15 Feb | NotesSensei | Every urban legend has some origin in things that (might have) happened. I use that story to create awareness, that the 'usual' approaches in requirement design might be a bit outdated. My prime suspects: - Design screen layout and then reports - Require month-end/year-end processing - use FTP/Comma delimited as I/O interfaces - Require web applications look same (to the pixel) in all, including 'ancient' browsers .... :-) stw |
| Sun 15 Feb | Suspicious Conspiracy Theorist | Why does your server try to connect back on port 8080? |
| Sun 15 Feb | NotesSensei | Dunno. Need to check that. It's an Domino 651 and the firewall isset not to let it talk on things other than 80/443. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Aussie Chick | >Based in the western world it was about roasting chicken, a wife was in the habit of cutting the chicken in half to do this. My husband told me this one, a few months back. I just spent the last year applying this policy to the firm I work for. Spent the last year running around the firm asking 'okay so why do you do this, what is the reason for it, tell me everything you know, lets do it better and document everything we know so that in five years time the next poor tech support person that get in will have an idea what is going on' Still haven't been able to break the 'Every folder put in the 'p:\pnx' directory has to begin with 'DATA', except if we have two folders that will need the same name, then the second folder begins with 'DAT''... or the 8 char file names... |
| Sun 15 Feb | Norrick | The most frequent 'WTF?!?' trigger I find with my client base is their habit of requesting screens that look exactly like a paper form they are accustomed to using. They don't understand the ways in which a relational database with a decent front-end can set them free of only interating with their data one way. I spend 15 minutes or so mocking up some screens in Access, and pitch them as a counterproposal to their request of (we need a screen that looks like this'. I usually manage to change their minds. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Simon Lucy | People want forms on the screen because that's how they think of the process. I've told the story before of my first commercial development when they asked me to produce the exact same form as their roneoed manuscript form, complete with asterisks making the boxes. I did exactly that, along with a lot of complicated code to get them from one bit of the form to the other and delivered it. Within a week they were bored of scrolling up and down, so I produced the form I always wanted to give them which was a single screen which did the whole thing. Thus confirming my own belief of never prototyping. |
| Sun 15 Feb | James U-S | It's a common dilema. My business is centred around process improvement & consultancy - we go to companies, examine their problems & processes that are not working well and change them. Generally we can do a cost-benefit analysis to show why the change is necessary. If the process costs £x now, and by changing it will reduce the cost by 25% then it follows that they should make that change. We also often work on a percentage of savings / pay when satisfied basis. We tell them that if we're wrong and the cost savings don't happen, then we'll accept it as our mistake and they don't need to pay. That way they are assuming very little risk. It also helps close the deal as clearly we're very confident about our services. Another trick is to work from the bottom up. If you can get people on all levels of the company (not just the executives) excited about the change and how it will benefit them, then pressure on the execs to make the change comes from all sides. Show them a prototype that demonstrates how easy and flexible the new system will be and if it's good enough that will be all you need to get them hooked. |
| Sun 15 Feb | motta | A similar anecdote, quoted from http://store.yahoo.com/paulgraham/arcll1.html : 'In The Periodic Table, Primo Levi tells a story that happened when he was working in a varnish factory. He was a chemist, and he was fascinated by the fact that the varnish recipe included a raw onion. What could it be for? No one knew; it was just part of the recipe. So he investigated, and eventually discovered that they had started throwing the onion in years ago to test the temperature of the varnish: if it was hot enough, the onion would fry.' |
| Sun 15 Feb | Philo | 1) 'The five why's' - You ask why something is done a certain way, then just keep asking 'Why?' until you get to the root of the problem. 2) If you *ever* hear the phrase 'we've always done it that way' you need to drop everything and chase down that alley to the end. Philo |
| Sun 15 Feb | Les C | Actually, I have found most clients have moved past the 'make it look like the paper form' stage. They all want it to look (and work) just like an Excel spreadsheet. I seem to spend half my life denormalising data for the user interface -- turning all those rows into repeating data columns. grr. |
| Sincere question about open source | Sat 14 Feb | Philo |
| What is the philosophy regarding change control in the open source community? What I mean - there is the low-level mantra regarding open source of if you dont like it, you have the source code and can change it yourself. But doesnt that fork the tree? If you put the effort into customizing the Linux 2.4 kernel, how did you deal with the 2.6 release? Is there a merging philosophy? Do you get the changelog and walk through making the changes yourself? Or are you not supposed to actually hack the kernel yourself, but rather make changes via libraries and APIs? Just wondering, Philo |
| Sat 14 Feb | Mike Swieton | The policy, as far as I've observed is this: The kernel is a special case, because it warrants changes that can't really be modular (modules can't do everything, can they?). For instance, every hard-realtime patch I'm aware of is a patch; a fork. That's the nature of the kernel; it's kept pretty 'pure'. In general, the philosophy seems to be a good bit of the 'you can make your customizations yourself'. This hardly ever forks projects, because often patches are accepted. For instance, I wrote a frontend to the mplayer program a while back, and I wanted a few more slave-mode commands. So I wrote them, sent in a patch, and now they're in the CVS mplayer. Patches are always accepted with goodwill, even if the maintainer decides not to apply it. Forks are extremely rare, and even rarer is when a fork doesn't take over the project (elinks feels very much to have replaced links for instance). I also have been getting a sense of greater modularity than commercial programs (I may be very wrong here, though). A huge number of big projects have plugin APIs. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Alex.ro | You know I was wondering the same thing, glad you brought it up. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Dan Maas | Yes, I'd estimate that 95% of changes are accommodated by users finding a bug or feature opportunity, either the user or the developer writing a patch, and the patch getting applied. The remaining 5% become forks (whether for technical or personal reasons). I suspect there are quite a few developers who customize source code here and there without sending in patches. There's nothing legally wrong with this (unless the code is GPL or LGPL and goes into a product), but it does lead to duplication of effort. The increased modularity of the open source world is both a blessing and a curse. On one hand it makes it easier to coordinate a herd of volunteer developers, on the other hand it leads to fragmentation and fifty ways of doing the same thing. (how many audio players are there for Gnome and KDE again??) |
| Sat 14 Feb | Dan Maas | I just want to clarify that for someone coming from the commercial software world, getting a patch applied may be an utterly alien experience. As far as I know Microsoft and Adobe don't accept random code fragments submitted by unknown individuals. But it's very common in open source for developers to take almost any improvement even from a total outsider. |
| Sat 14 Feb | no name | There's no 'one way'. But generally, you submit a patch to the maintainers. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Lou | Philo, with regard to the phrase, 'if you don't like something, you have the source and can change it' - the comment notes on several possilibities. A user may find a bug or missing feature, code it and release it as a fork. This is generally considered to be a 'bad thing', as forking creates confusion and often splits programmer effort with little benefit. Alternatively the patch may be coded and submitted to the project and accepted as part of the core. Or it may be identified as a patch for those who want the specific abilities provided by that patch or set of patches. The Linux kernal has several patch sets providing alternative VM systems, real-time extensions, etc that do not necessarily need to be in the core. Submitting a patch is typically seen as the largest benefit of open source software. If the user sees a missing feature or bug it can be coded and applied - either locally (at first) or potentially globally (if the community and/or maintainer(s) deem it worthy/necessary). |
| Sat 14 Feb | C Rose | The difference between the proprietary closed-source development model and the open-source model is really a cultural difference. Adobe (say), won't accept a patch from an unknown outsider, because they do not publish their code -- so how would one write a patch? A company may publish a plug-in API, but this doesn't let you fix or modify the core of their app. In the open-source world, everything is set up so that it is easy for anyone (who can code, write documentation, etc.) to contribute. There is probably a public CVS server, there will be web-based code documentation (usually automatically-generated using something like Doxygen), there may be a dashboard showing the status of unit tests on recent builds (these may be run automatically on a regular basis), and there will also be a mailing list. Documentation should exist to help newcomers. If there is functionality that one would like to see added, the above mechanisms serve to help the developer get into the project, do the coding and submit their contribution. Often this will involve dialogue on the mailing list, so the project leader(s) will be aware of the work being done and can advise on how best to do it. Sometimes the proposal will run orthogonally to the project leader(s) overall aims for the project, and this is when a project may get forked. Otherwise, the patches will be accepted, evaluated, tested, and perhaps rolled into the main branch of the project, to be released at a future date. |
| Sat 14 Feb | FullNameRequired | 'But doesn't that fork the tree?'
well, yesish, obviously there are different degrees of changes.
for instance, if I want I can simply grab the linux source and make changes in my version, possibly distributing that around my company as the 'blessed' version.
If I do that then obviously Im responsible for updating the changes to the latest Linux source as it comes out, and clearly on the whole its going to be a PITA for me to maintain.
beats me why anyone would want to do it, but the possibility is there if we need it.
OTOH I can create a 'patch' that alters the source code, and I can release that patch into the Linux community..the idea being that its merged with the actual linux source by anyone who is interested in doing so.
If people want to use it they can, if they want to ignore it they can, on the whole if a bunch of people like the patch and begin using it, its prolly going to be passed up the chain until either it stops being liked and used, or the maintainer decides to enter it into the 'main' branch and it officially becomes a part of the source for good.
At any given time there are a heap of patches for Linux floating around the ether, some are often used, some are not, some will go on to become part of the main source, some wont...it all depends on how motivated the creator is to keep it up to date, and how much other people like it and use it.
'If you put the effort into customizing the Linux 2.4 kernel, how did you deal with the 2.6 release?'
|
| Sat 14 Feb | a | What a bunch of wankers you open source followers are. If I want some feature on Windows, I can write an application or library that does it. That's the whole point of Windows. |
| Sat 14 Feb | FullNameRequired | ' I can write an application or library that does it. That's the whole point of Windows.'
so? how does that make us wankers? you wanto use windows, go use windows.
I develop a _lot_ of closed source stuff for windows and mac, thats my business.
I also have a real interest in open source software because I rather like most of its tenets.
No one is stopping you from continuing to use windows, no one wants to stop you from using windows, no one cares if you do use windows.
Personally, I like osx, philo prefers windows and Ive no doubt someone on this forum swears by Linux...there is no reason all those preferences cannot coexist, and these days theres no reason I cannot prefer to use one while developing for another.
(love wxWindows and REALbasic |
| Sat 14 Feb | Eric Debois | Dont feed the troll.. With regards to the above question though> Libs are rarley forked. Most applications developed for linux (afaict) have a very clear cut separation between user interface and core functionality. So, if some one is unhappy with the functionality of AppXYZ, they would probably make use of LibXYZ and collaborate on that, and then add their own LibXYZ_super++ for their own application and tuck their own gui ontop of it. So, what appears to be an abundance of apps with very simmilar functinality may in reality be just variations on the same app. I noticed this personally when I switched from gnome to KDE recently. I swapped out almost every app, but alot of the libs are still the same. The downside of this is that dependancies to become quite complex. |
| Sat 14 Feb | a cynic writes... | Some projects are happy with forks some aren't. From what I've read Linus Thorvalds is quite happy for people to fork the kernel. I read somewhere him quoted as saying that was (in his view) the great benefit of the GPL - it meant that forks could be always be legally remerged if they proved useful. I believe that at one stage there were several high profile trees with Alan Cox's tending to merge patches that were being considered for the main (i.e. Linus's) tree. I also believe most commercial distributions use their own tree - but track the 'main' tree reasonably closely. When Linus considers development work complete on a version he hands over to someone else as maintainer. As to merging philosophy on the main tree - I think it boils down to if Linus thinks it's stable, from a reasonably trustworthy developer, useful and will improve the kernal he merges it. If he doesn't, you can start your own tree and you get a chance to prove him wrong. If you're interested most of the development work takes place on the kernel mailing list (see http://www.linux.org ) and there are various sites which track development (eg http://kerneltrap.org ). |
| Sat 14 Feb | sgf | I've always thought Open Source was kinda' forked up. :) |
| Sun 15 Feb | Simon Lucy | Serious open source projects are very tightly managed, as much as closed source commercial development teams are, they have a core group of responsible engineers that validate submissions. Sometimes that validation is brain dead and they want to stifle development in a particular direction. If the project is useful enough then you'll get a fork that matters. There's two broad philosophies in relation to source control and managing the corpus. One says the tip shall always build and function, though versions may branch off for experimentation, the tip is always sane and woe betide anyone that breaks the tip. The other philosophy is that the tip is where we are today and the branches are those frozen releases in the past, or they're branched in order to freeze. The tip is meant to build, but it might actually be rubbish. I prefer the former philosophy it makes more sense to me. When I was peripherally involved in Mozilla and offering fixes they seemed to use the latter method. I'm still convinced that half the stop-go progress of the development in the middle years was because of that, that and the relative immaturity of some of those managing the project. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Robert Sayre | It's often far easier to fix your problem on your specific configuration than it is to solve the general case. You're free to solve the problem in the quickest possible manner, even in ways which would be inappropriate to distribute. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Koz | At a previous employer we were deployng an alpha build of samba to replace the aging NT4 PDC. However there was a problem with the release at that point, when configured as we required it, the server was incorrectly comparing DOMAIN\user to user in one module. Now, we whipped up a quick patch for that module which did the obvious and removed the domain and the \ from the value before searching. This wasn't the best solution, however it worked for us. We submitted a bugreport and attached our 'patch' to it. One of the samba maintainers picked up the patch, saw it was ugly, dug around and fixed the actual problem. We continued to use our 'patched' version until the next release of the samba code in a months' time. So, our patch was a short-term solution to a real bug, and bore no relation to the final fix. However thanks to our having the source we could fix it and move on. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Andrew Burton | Philo, I'm surprised no one has brought this up, so I guess I'll have to be the one. If you're interested in what *CAN* happen in the OS community regarding 'fix it yourself' vesus 'but it's our stuff,' look into the history of Emacs versus XEmacs. Here's a link to one person's account of the story: http://www.jwz.org/doc/lemacs.html |
| Sun 15 Feb | FullNameRequired | 'Here's a link to one person's account of the story' yeah, its a _good_ story that. It really highlights the strengths of OSS IMO, in cases where no agreement can be reached on agendas, _everyone_ still has reasonable alternatives. |
| Google Answers, and a spin on the idea. | Sat 14 Feb | Christopher Hester |
| There is an earlier thread on Google answers, which is a pretty good idea. Is there out there, and if not I would like to see, a service that is similar but fo programming issues. Example: I have a a medicare supplied .dll that is cryptic, that I need to write a C++ wrapper for. It has some documentation, but this isnt my line of work, should be easy for someone in the know. Price Point $40. Many times I would rather pay someone to walk me through a new concept than troll through forums. It may be lazy but that is why you have to pay... BTW, the above problem is real, and I will pay someone to help me... |
| Sat 14 Feb | no name | rent-a-coder, et al |
| Sat 14 Feb | Robert Jacobson | http://www.experts-exchange.com/ |
| Sat 14 Feb | Alex.ro | Between trolling the forums prying answers bit by bit, and hiring a full-blown coder, there is definitely a niche... Mind you, Christopher is not talking about *getting someone to do the work*. Rather, someone who can walk you through the 'discovery' process. New things are so big these days. Since someone has learned this particular thing already, why go through the same painful learning process. Especially when you only need this API or whatever -- *once*. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Egor Shipovalov | I depend on freelance work to make a living, so I'm going to speak from first-hand experience. From the developer's perspective, it just isn't financially viable in the long run to take jobs of that volume unless you have done exactly this before and are 100% sure that you spend just this amount of time on it. Which very rarely happens. The overhead of dealing with a new client, and the possibility of scope creeps, make it not worth it. It isn't impossible to find someone with a full-time job (or a student) doing freelancing on the side, who'd be interested in this. But you can hardly expect professional conduct from them. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Aussie Chick | As another side to that last post. I am exactly that sort of 'freelancer', I work full-time, have done a degree, and am working long term to write some useful software applications that could earn me a living. Along with this I check out alot of freelance job boards looking for the type of work that you mentioned. A professional (or full-time freelancer) may not consider the job worthwhile, however for me there is more value then just money. I earn experience, which for someone starting in the field is highly worthwhile. I may end up earning less on a job then I could earn p/h in my admin dayjob, but I improve in the field, I get experience with customers, with the nature of freelancing, I something I can put in my resume (in one form or another)... My point is I think the calibre of person to do the job does exist. My question would be whether there are that many people out there who want this kind of help? |
| Sun 15 Feb | Me and the view out the window | Aussie Chick, I would advise you to stay away from this type of 'freelancing' arrangement. They're out to screw you. You don't learn anything, and you certainly don't develop good experience dealing with customers, when you're working for someone who thinks a new version of Word can be written for $250. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Simon Lucy | Google answers is not new. In about 1978 or so I was pounding the pavement selling, or attempting to sell, encyclopedias door to door. Apart from all the interesting tales I have of that (the entire greenhouse flying down the street in a gale, the woman wrapped only in a light robe), there was a service which came if they bought the 4 and a half year finance option (just 50p a day Mr and Mrs Pisspot, is your child's education worth a pack of cigarettes a day). The service was 25 questions that you could ask Merit Inc's experts and you'd get full and complete answers. So, there is nothing new under the sun. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Egor Shipovalov | I'd second that. There isn't much point in freelance programming beyond just making a good buck. Most of the stuff that gets outsourced is neither advanced nor innovative (there *are* exceptions, but exceptions they are). If you have a day job that pays the bills, it's way better to focus on your own thing. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Aussie Chick | >You don't learn anything, and you certainly don't develop good experience dealing with customers, when you're working for someone who thinks a new version of Word can be written for $250. This is partly what I meant when I questioned 'whether there are that many people out there who want this kind of help?', I have looked at the rent-a-coder site and it seems devoted to getting people to write brand new versions of word for $250, or the like. Serious jobs where you get paid properly for the job are rare, but I keep looking... |
| Norrick Bitches About His Career...Again | Sat 14 Feb | Norrick |
| I was supposed to be a project manager by now. Before I got laid off, I was being groomed to move out of my Technical Lead position in the Development business unit and into a Project Manager position in the Client Services business unit. The schedule was that Id be taking on my first project as a manager in April. Then the business nearly bankrupted. Management popped open a spreadsheet of employees and salaries, sorted the list from biggest salary to smallest, and started cutting people until they decided they had cut enough payroll expense to survive the quarter. I was cut number 7 out of 8 people cut. Damn that last raise! It seems silly to complain about it now, but after a year (I got laid off exactly one year ago today), I still dont feel as though my career is back on track - if anything, its like Ive been put in a time machine and sent backwards 5 years. Im not making as much money as I was before (with the exception of this month, which is temporary), my projects are stone cold boring (why, yes Mr. Small Business Owner, Id love to build yet *another* fucking billing system ), and the local market is neither technically sophisticated nor developed enough to have more than a minimal need for project management services. The result is that Im stuck in the role of code monkey. And this is at a time when code monkey work is being shipped overseas at an alarming rate, AND new technologies being spawned make even the simplest tasks of the software developer vastly more complicated, which leaves the code monkey in the position of having to know 3 times as much just to be able to do half the stuff he used to do. I was starting to feel burnt out on coding before I even got laid off - thats why I was so pleased to have won the slot of Project Manager in-training. It was the opportunity I needed to flex new muscles and exercise my interests in business and process instead of just my interests in creation and logic. But here I am, one year later. Less money. Less security. Boring projects. No visible career ladder to climb. Diminishing prospects as the market moves to Hyderabad and the new technology requires you to write 5,000 lines of code just to validate some form input and pop up a fucking dialog box to tell the user they forgot to fill in a field on a screen someplace. Arrrgh. Arrrgh, I say. This month and next I will make mucho dollars thanks to a couple of short-term projects that happen to have fallen into the same time frame. But so what? The overall picture is little better than it was the day after I got laid off. Im a fortunate man in that Ive been able to hang on this long, and that Im still able to keep my family housed and fed. But whats the end game? Where is this taking me? A year ago I would have said my career was taking me into Project Management, the Product Management, and then into the Executive ranks, perhaps with a stop-off in Sales. But now? As a self-employed person, I can technically give myself any title I want, but the only service I actually have to sell that the market is currently demanding is coding. And although in 1999 the coder was king, coding takes a guy nowhere fast these days. I feel like Im treading water with ankle weights on. My name is Norrick, and I am a malcontent. |
| Sat 14 Feb | MT | Sing it brother. Two years ago I was the lead programmer for an enterprise software product that sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars a copy. Worked for one of the top software companies - unbelievable salary, benefits, bonuses, and stock. We were being organized into our own product development division and I was in the process of setting up my own lab - in Florida no less. There was even talk about spinning us off into our own company in a year or two with myself as CTO or Chief Scientist. Well, after 9/11 everything faded away and I eventually got caught up in a mass layoff. Now I'm working for a university hospital for less than half what I was making before, doing incredibly boring data warehousing work for an incredibly moronic boss, with absolutely no opportunity for advancement. The one good thing about this job is that I can keep up with my coworkers even if I only work an hour or two a day - the rest of the day I can focus on building my own software business. I have one product ready for release and two more in the pipeline. Thats the only thing keeping me going now - the hope that I can break free. If I thought I would have to work 30 more years as a programmer for someone else I would take out a huge insurance policy for my family and then find a way to die without it looking like suicide. |
| Sat 14 Feb | no name | Welcome to the new economy. Sorry. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Norrick | 'Welcome to the new economy. Sorry. ' Heh. Ain't that the truth. Lest my post be perceived as total negativism, I have to say - I'm not completely out of ideas yet. Just a little frustrated and needing to blow off steam. I suspect that if 90% of the work I'm doing weren't subcontract work that requires me to take half my usual rate, I'd be at least a *little* less frustrated. ;) |
| Sat 14 Feb | Bored Bystander | OK, Norrick, while those are tough breaks, at least it sounds like you're working. My question: exactly *how* do you find the opportunity to build 'another fucking billing system'? I would be overjoyed to find mundane, low profile work like that on a consistent basis. And look at it this way: you're building your own image, not your boss-man's ego and new mansion. >> the new technology requires you to write 5,000 lines of code just to validate some form input and pop up a fucking dialog box Do you mean .Net, something else in particular, or are you just bitching about new platforms in general? |
| Sat 14 Feb | Philo | Jobs are like relationships - you either have one or you don't, you're in one you like or you aren't, and there is no way to see the transition coming. In August of last year I was in a losing contract, hating life, trying to convince myself I could make it work. Then a friend said 'hey would you like me to put your resume in to Microsoft' and now here I am. My point is that you have no way of knowing what tomorrow may bring. You can do things to improve your odds, but at the end it's like predicting which two atoms will fuse - you can't; you just have to watch and see. Open the paths you need, keep an open mind, and be optimistic - that will get you farther than anything. Best of luck. Philo |
| Sat 14 Feb | Norrick | BB - right now most of the work I'm getting is coming through a local guy who does outsourced network tech work for a bunch of small businesses. I'm subcontracting through him to build software for his clients. I wanted to set up a flat-fee referral arrangement with him, but he wouldn't go for it, and at the time it was either get some work RIGHT NOW or file bankruptcy. I chose to get some work right now. I know, I know...I should be happy just to have any work. I am. I'm just frustrated that I don't currently have any opportunities to do work that is more interesting. Which bring me to... Philo - I agree wholeheartedly with you. Part of the problem with posting a bitchy, blowing off steam post is that people think those bitchy sentiments are the only ones the poster has. So let me assure you, I'm definitely staying optimistic and open and I'm always trying to cultivate market presence so that new (hopefully better paying and more interesting) opportunities come my way. At the same time, I can't help but roll my eyes, punch my heavybag and proclaim 'where the fuck is all the interesting work?!?!' every so often. I think it's healthy. Mmmm...Microsoft. That would be my dream employer. Congrats on the new gig. I remember your 'contract of death' but didn't know you had jumped to MS. |
| Sat 14 Feb | FredF | >> Lest my post be perceived as total negativism, I have to say - I'm not completely out of ideas yet Precisely. In the markets in which you've worked, there must some that weren't well taken care of, whether due to prices (big company = big expenses), big and complicated software (small companies = small means), bad service and support (one of the strong points of OSS = problems are solved faster because you can reach developers directly, instead of wasting time with support monkeys), etc. FWIW, my dad has been doing very well in the health software business for over 20 years, and it all started because he meant some manager who was looking for business software. A great nice market. Working on his own for a long time, customers could reach and ask him directly for features they needed, he could sell his software for much lower prices that his (small) competitition since he didn't have high expenses, and he always took care to write small, fast applications that could run on older computers (where his competitors often required upgrading to the late$t and greate$t computers.) I'm not positive, but I think Joel wrote an article recently about the fact that by far, most business are not started based on a brand new, smashing idea, but rather, on studying a market well, and providing better output, whether it's the product and/or the service. >> My name is Norrick, and I am a malcontent. Great quote :-) |
| Sat 14 Feb | Norrick | 'Precisely. In the markets in which you've worked, there must some that weren't well taken care of, whether due to prices (big company = big expenses), big and complicated software (small companies = small means), bad service and support (one of the strong points of OSS = problems are solved faster because you can reach developers directly, instead of wasting time with support monkeys), etc.' That is a *great* point. In fact, when I got laid off the first thing I did was go after some of my old employer's client whom I knew to be unhappy with the service, etc. Sadly, none of them wanted anything to do with a one-man show. I think I should have done some image work first, so I didn't *look* like a one-man show. But that's neither here nor there. You make a cogent point about finding underserved or poorly served niches. But remember that when you try to serve people that have been poorly served in the past, you sometimes have a steep hill to climb in overcoming their negative perceptions about development firms and developers in general- after all, if all developers are equally bad, why not hire the cheapest you can find? That said, I'll tell you that 90% of the work I'm doing right now is remediating work that was screwed up by a pervious programmer. There is definitely money to be made in serving the poorly served, if you can get them to get over their jitters long enough to give you a shot. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Bored Bystander | Norrick, I'm sure that in the medium run and long run you'll make it. Your comments and rants are informative and actually helpful. Thanks for posting. |
| Sat 14 Feb | New beginning | Second Philo Enterprise software absolutely sucked in every way, the big $$$ was the only thing keeping me going. After getting laid off from a very high-paying job, I fell into a deep depression thinking I had to return to something I hate, never making nearly as much money as I was making before. Graphics had been a hobby of mine, and I had always wondered if there was a way to sneak into professional game development. I continued to work on my own engine. I then purchased a commercial engine and got together with some artists in trying to get a small shareware game project going. Then a small startup studio needed my skills so I joined up with them, and then I followed one of their former employees on to a large studio owned by Infogrames/Atari. The pay isn't great, but the culture is. It's stable (game development more stable than enterprise software??? Go figure) and the work is very interesting. Generally, life is pretty good. But anyways, my point is the same as Philo's. Look at any and all possible paths, look at your current positives, and be optimistic. Very true, the current economy is absolute crap so it's going to take a lot of patience too. |
| Sat 14 Feb | FredF | >> Sadly, none of them wanted anything to do with a one-man show. [....] But remember that when you try to serve people that have been poorly served in the past, you sometimes have a steep hill to climb in overcoming their negative perceptions about development firms and developers in general- after all, if all developers are equally bad, why not hire the cheapest you can find? Right. Trust is a very important factor when choosing a provider, especially in something as central and abstract as software, a field that most managers are totally clueless, which, understandably, creates some dependance that they resent. They don't like us software people because - they only consider the _cost_ of buying software, not the _benefits_ they get out of it (just unplug the computer for a couple of days, and see how your business operates, my friend...) - they know that, save the most basic applications, replacing a software program with another is co$tly ... hence the need for you to address this issue. Considering he was working on his own for a over a decade before my bro and I joined in, one of the questions that my dad had to answer regularly, was, what happened if he got in a car accident? He got to dodge this because he's a niche market, provides better service along with customizations at a better price than his few competitors, but it's true that it's an important question you must address. What about 1. using widely-used tools (so that taking over your code will be less difficult than if you're using stuff you developed yourself) 2. teaming up with a developer you really get along with? I insist on the _really_, as it's so common for small shops to go out of business because the developers didn't get along, and they split. Not an easy problem to address. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Norrick | FreF...all good points. I do think about these things. First off, I am a meticulous documenter. No code gets written without spec, and no spec gets written without a functional spec that the user has signed off on. Any developer with sufficient experience could take over my projects and kow where everything was, where everything stands, and where everytihg is headed. WRT tools, I work in VB, ASP, SQL Server and sometimes Access. It doesn't get much more widely-used than that. My value-add is that I have successful project management and technical leadership experience that many developers lack. I'll never be the best coder in the room, nor do I care to be - but I am a capable coder who knows how to run a project in such a way that the customer's objectives will be met. That's the selling point. When I can find customers, that is. ;) I suspect that living in the heart of CA's farm country isn't helping me any. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Norrick | Please forgive the spelling errors. My son is tugging at my sleeve! |
| Sat 14 Feb | FredF | >> First off, I am a meticulous documenter. No code gets written without spec, and no spec gets written without a functional spec that the user has signed off on Good point. I assume having an independ shop audit your code and the way you operate would be too expensive, but combined with the tools you work with, it should help prospects be willing to take the risk of working with your tools. Do put some quotes about VB et al., and show prospects that those are very common tools (read: The risk is a bit lower than if the guy wrote the whole thing himself.) >> When I can find customers, that is. ;) I suspect that living in the heart of CA's farm country isn't helping me any. Thanks to the Net, this is a bit less of an issue. Remember to either make your dedicated application connected oriented (eg. auto-update so as to lower the support cost of keeping your customers up to date, and/or move the logic to a server on the Net via XMLRPC/SOAP), or write it as an ActiveX control that is embedded in a web page. I know the latter solution looks dated... but we just have two guinear pigs currently playing with our very first application written this way, one of them working with a computer for the very first time... and so far, they're thrilled. Just launch your favorite browser, display the application, and get some work done. You can even disconnect if you're using dial-up, as long as you keep the browser window open. Cool :-) >> Please forgive the spelling errors. My son is tugging at my sleeve! There, you just found your partner in crime for your new business :-) |
| Sat 14 Feb | realist | Norrick, good luck with things. You've got a family and you're looking after them, so you're ahead on that score at least. However your main point is certainly true. I think a lot of staffers just don't get it until they get sacked, and then they discover that lack of jobs means they don't get a job. It is a hard new reality. It actually took me a long time to accept the facts, because I also am a top developer and top PM, and I rationalised that it was simply taking a bit longer than normal for my next job to come along. Get involved in the political process and get even with the bastards who are responsible for the suffering they've caused you, your family and your child. |
| Sat 14 Feb | . | Even if one truly believed that project management was a superior role to software development (I personally consider it a parallel role, and if a coder moves to project management it's usually the Peter Principal rather than anything else -- they were probably a piss poor coder rather than a really good coder who they thought was so good they should instead make MS Project Gannt charts and status reports), why would project management in the technical realm be any less succeptible to offshoring than software development? It isn't. Yeah I know people imagine a imaginary world where the only change with offshoring is that the coders are overseas, but in most realities the offshoring companies basically bring in their own project managers to interact with the business, to do the status reports and gannt charts, etc. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Noname | Actually what happens is that there is usually a project manager from the offshore company PLUS an in-house employee project manager. Plus a project manager at the offshore site. That all cuts in to the savings but they don't care. They hide the additional on-site costs and hype up the 'savings' achieved by having X number of programmers offshore. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Christopher Wells | What does a Project Manager do, anyway? Why don't developers write their own status reports and Gannt charts? http://discuss.fogcreek.com/joelonsoftware/default.asp?cmd=show&ixPost=5407 |
| Sat 14 Feb | Sum Dum Gai | Just think it could be worse. At least you like programming in the abstract, even if not your current project. On the other hand, I've come to the realisation that I have never actually liked programming. I liked what I could do with the skill, it's just that I enjoy the end result not the process. I've never really analysed it until recently when I was trying to work out why I hated my job so much. So I've wasted years doing what I'm skilled at and trying to like it, rather than doing what I like and trying to become skilled at it. :( So look on the bright side, at least you know what you're aiming for and are qualified to do it, even if the oppourtunities aren't there right at the moment. But things change, and maybe the oppourtunity will come tomorrow. You know what you want, that's half the battle already won. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Norrick | 'Even if one truly believed that project management was a superior role to software development' I can't let this one just go by. The issue is not one of superiority or inferiority. The issue is that I was hungry for a different type of role, a chance to flex some different muscles. And I still am. It's not a qualitative thing - it is a differential thing. And if you don't know what value a project manager adds to a project, you haven't worked with any good project managers. And please don't let the lack of nuance inherent in message board posts lead you to think that's a knock on you - few of us have had good project manager experiences. The best managers are neither controllers nor commanders; rather, they are passionate advocates for their developers. In my (admittedly arrogant and idealistic) opinion, the chief role of any manager should be to set some goals for his team with their input as a reality check, then do everything he can to eliminate the obstacles that stand between his team and their goal. Let's face it - any manager that feels the need to micromanage people in this day and age is just admitting that the hiring policies of his company stink. I've met few managers like that, true. But the fact remains that a) the challenges of the project manger are different enough, and enough in line with my lesser-used aptitudes that it is an attractive role to me, and b) a good project manager (as oppoed to one who wakes up 5 months into the project) is a joy to work with - and that's the kind of project manager I aspire to be. |
| Sun 15 Feb | New Perspective | Norrick, I would like to comment on your very first post in this thread. I guess the techie business is really not as stable as it used to be. Perhaps it never was. It looks like most jobs these days are not very secure in general. Especially when you look at companies like Enron, MCI and the others in the pile. How can you possibly feel secure? Even when you have everything (seemingly). Unless you are at the top of the chain, there is always doubt. Maybe you would like to approach your situation a little differently from a different perspective.. At least for just a few moment. At one point in my life, I was in a frustrating, painful and hurtful situation that made me feel very insecure, hopeless, helpless and angry. I said 'Why me damn it? I work hard, I have a brain, I have passion... Why me but not the moron over there?'. When I got laid off a few years ago, on my way to home from work for the last time, I got stuck in traffic. At that moment in the car, I felt so insignificant, so tiny, so worthless, so alone and so damn angry. Ever felt that way? Maybe not... Which brings me to my point. I would recommend you (and anyone else who might have tuned in) to read this book: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0399142789/qid=1076826502//ref=pd_ka_1/103-3311853-5474231?v=glance&s=books&n=507846 Before you read the back of the book, or start commenting about the title, you need to leave all your prejudice at the door for just a little bit. I know it is very tempting to judge. I can't blame you. I did my share of judging until I get passed the first few chapters. On the other hand, it presents a different perspective which might be what you need. I came across it myself almost by accident, and it changed everything for me. It may or may not do the same for you. It all depends I guess. Be warned. You do need an open mind. As I said you will need to shut your brain up for a little, and get passed the symbolism in the book. I am sure you are busy (perhaps not), but your time might be well spent reading it. What have you got to lose? This moment kinda reminds me of the 'blue pill' 'red pill' moment. Which will you choose? ;) If you like this book, there is 4 more in the series with plenty of food for thought. I am sure you can even get it at a local library if you don't want to spend your money. Good luck with everything. |
| Sun 15 Feb | .. | From the Amazon page about that book ----------------------------------- Look for similar books by subject: Browse for books in: Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > General Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > Mysticism Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > Spirituality > General Subjects > Religion & Spirituality > Authors, A-Z > ( W ) > Walsch, Neale Donald ------------------------------------ |
| Sun 15 Feb | my_opinion | Proselytizing on JOS is in semi-poor taste. I think. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Prakash S | $100 says it is the author trying to sell his book. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/14/technology/14AMAZ.html?ex=1392094800&en=183dc1d16a0c7b4c&ei=5007 |
| Sun 15 Feb | www.marktaw.com | That's a great article. Goes to show ya, not only does it happen, but Amazon knows it's going on as well. Any system that can be subverted for a profit will be, including reviewers who you've come to know and trust if the price is right. Now where do I sign up for some of that sellout money? |
| Sun 15 Feb | Norrick | I'm going to take the less cynical path and say this: New Perspective, thank you for attempting to share your faith and the related reading material in an attempt to help. That said, I am a semi-practicing Buddhist and feel completely satisfied with that spiritual paradigm, and will probably not include that book in my reading rotation. Thanks again. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Norrick | I just had a thought. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this came to me in an 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em moment'. What if I invested in some corporate image and started soliciting projects not as a one-man show, but as a company? The distinction in identity is fine, but non-trivial when it comes to marketing. Hellfire, I could even offshore my *own* work to Hyderabad, give myself a Project Manager title, and use my coding ability to reality-check the code produced by the third-party developers. As long as my clients were kept happy, it'd be great. I'm only half joking. My name is Norrick, and I will sell out if it means keeping my family fed. |
| Sun 15 Feb | FullNameRequired | 'I'm only half joking.' dont be joking at all. Its _not_ selling out, its making a living. Make yourself a company, get the work and find a few reliable indian, chinese or whatever programmers to do the actual coding. Use the profit you make to hire more salespeople, thereby gaining even more work. _everyone_ wins. including you ) |
| Sun 15 Feb | Norrick | Remember one thing...even when I am dead serious, *everything* I say has a dash of sarcasm thrown in. I've tried to fight the tendency, but it's as natural as the morning for me. ;) |
| Sun 15 Feb | x | My own pie-in-the-sky take is that the 'Age of Companies' is coming to an end, as the underlying assumption that an employee once had that one could rely on a company to show them some level of loyalty is now completely gone. A company is different from a simple corporate entity in that a company is a group of people organized to do something. A corporation is just an accounting and legal entity that bears no relationship to the people doing the work inside it. Businesses nowadays, particularly big ones, are corporations, not companies. (An aside: I'd expect lots more people embezzling from corporations and generally doing unethical things as it becomes clear that there's little to be gained by being a good, solid worker bee anymore...) For better or worse, we're now in an age of free-agency and entrepreneurship, in which one is exposed to 'entrepreneural risk' whether one is an entrepreneur or not. So, the best choice is to be entrepreneurial about one's career, keep the skills up, the rolodex fat, and be as close to external delivery of service to customers as possible. I expect most professionals will end up being entrepreneurs at some point in their lives, whether they want to or not. Another key is to have a big enough bank account to get through a couple of lean years while transitioning if things go badly, and keeping one's personal burn rate low. This may mean no fancy SUV's and no McMansions, but gives one the flexibility to transition out of a career path that may be dying. Yet another aspect of 'enterpreneurial age survival' is a 'Bail Out Completely' strategy, hopefully with a funding plan. This would typically involve either going back to school, or starting one's own business. More schooling isn't interesting unless you are planning to be an employee or consultant. For me, being 40something, I'm more interested the biz option, and we've got enough savings that we could buy a reasonable small business now, and we're purposely living small and shoveling money in the bank. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Norrick | I've known a number of people who have implemented your 'Bail Out Completely' plan, although they seem to refer to it as their 'Aw, Fuck It' plan. One guy who was a DBA now runs a small print shop, another guy took a job designing skateboards and another laid-off software engineer I used to work with is now a firearms instructor. There are others. This stuff isn't pretty. Some people really are giving up and dropping out of the industry entirely. I frequently hear the sentiment that only the poorly-skilled are being flushed out, but the cream does not necessarily rise to the top. These are two solid guys, and they simply got tired of the strees that goes along with frequent volatility and an ever-changing technical landscape. Things are a-changing, indeed. But I believe in myself and in the marketplace, at least in the long-term sense. I think there still is an will continue to be enough abundance in the world that a guy with some brains and hustle can grab a little piece of it. If only it didn't have to be so mind-numbingly uninteresting... *goes back to building Yet Another Billing System* |
| Sun 15 Feb | Norrick | P.S. And don't think it didn't occur to me to bail out as well. I'm a fairly sharp boxer, I could always find some work as a sparring partner at a gym someplace. ;) We all have our dreams... |
| Sun 15 Feb | Sum Dum Gai | As I said in another thread, I think that the best will be some of the first to go, not the last like people seem to assume. If you're good, chances are you're pretty bright and have other skills that you can make use of in other industries. So why would you hang around on a ship that may be sinking? Even if the ship isn't sinking, the salaries seem likely to. So if the outsourcing trend continues, I wouldn't be surprised to see more of the best and brightest look further afield. I for one don't think it would be much fun left working with only the idiots, so I hope I'm wrong. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Me | I think programming as a role has been systematically devalued. Corporate arseholes have now succeeded in getting their programmers to be $50,000 boot lickers. The people hanging around for that are not the bright people. I am now going to enjoy those same corporate arseholes feel the blowtorch as the public starts to demand higher standards from those responsible, such as anonymous identities NOT being accidentally revealed on the web. |
| Sun 15 Feb | one programmer's opinion | Hi Norrick, PM jobs can be just as unstable and unrewarding as programming. That being said, you seem to have the right attitude about project management work which is trying to use such a position as stepping stone to something bigger and better. Most of the good project managers that I have worked with have all had the same attitude and done the same thing. Like BB, I would love to be able to find mind-numbingly uninteresting work on a consistent basis. The holy grail for most graybeards in this industry is to be able to spend the rest of their working lives building yet another f*cking billing system. Steady work along with a steady paycheck is what most pragmatist such as myself really want. Interesting project work is all well and fine when you are twenty something, have no family, don't mind traveling, and are able to work long hours on a consistent basis. Good luck and feel free to keep us updated on what comes next for you. |
| Sun 15 Feb | alberti | Norrick, If a project is boring, maybe it is because you are not abstracting it to a high enough level. I have a theory that there really are no boring programming projects. If you are doing one boring small business billing system after another, write a piece of software that automates or assists in writing boring small business billing systems. This will be an interesting piece of software to write. In addition, you can then hire non-programmers, who know the business domain, to configure billing systems for small businesses. Better yet, you can develop templates for specific business types and now sell or lease a product rather than wait around for consulting gigs. Just an idea.... Best of luck, and I hope things get better. |
| Sun 15 Feb | David Freeman | Sorry, I have to ask. Why are you 'writing' one billing system after another? Are they so different? Why don't you have one system and SELL one billing system after another (with mods)? There's the change you're looking for. David |
| Sun 15 Feb | Sum Dum Gai | One of the problems is that each business thinks they're a special little flower that needs their very own billing system. This is where the middleware vendors make a killing. They play on that, so they'll sell you the middleware, but their real profits come from screwing you will millions of dollars of consulting work to customise the system for you. In my opinion, it's one of the reasons companies get such poor returns on their IT investment. They expect the It to come to them. However, this always involves building new things, constant requirements changes, and so on, that means it will come in overtime and overbudget. If companies were willing to adjust to fit the IT, they may find that it is infact a lot more economical to make changes at the flexible human level, rather than the rigid computer level. Unfortunately, such philosophy offends the sensibilities of people who feel the computer should work for them. When in reality, if you accomodate the way computers work in your thinking, you'll find it's much easier to make them work for you, rather than trying to make them be 'human' and having a system that is an incomprehensible mess, and you end up having to think like the program to understand what the hell is going on. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Norrick | 'One of the problems is that each business thinks they're a special little flower that needs their very own billing system.' Exactly. |
| All you single guys | Sat 14 Feb | Philo |
| If youre in the market, GO TO AN ANIME CONVENTION Good lord - Im sitting in the lobby of the hotel where theres a huge convention in Northern Virginia and I swear the audience is at least 60% female. A lot of good-looking women (and quite a few revealing costumes, even in February) Oh! And I just saw my first japanese guy in a kilt. (I hope its a kilt. Could be a schoolgirls skirt [shudder]) Sincerely, Uncle Philo |
| Sat 14 Feb | GuyIncognito | oh sweet i'm so there... what's animae now? |
| Sat 14 Feb | FredF | Just make sure they _are_ females before jumping... to conclusions :-) |
| Sat 14 Feb | www.marktaw.com | Is this your valentines day advice Philo? |
| Sat 14 Feb | Philo | Yep. :) |
| Sat 14 Feb | Vince | Philo, you left out the most important part! Anime chicks, for whatever reason, *like* nerdy guys! I know what your all thinking, but its true! :-D |
| Sat 14 Feb | Philo | There is now a conga line traipsing around the hotel lobby. It's about 40 people long - there are two guys, the rest is female. And yes, there are a LOT of geeky guys here on the arms of some pretty cute women. Philo |
| Sat 14 Feb | sgf | I took my son (16) to an anime conference last summer. Weirdest dressed bunch of people I've ever seen. One guy walked around in just a pair of briefs all day. The normally dressed people were the misfits. And there were about 10 guys carrying huge white crosses. Oh well, to each his own... |
| Sat 14 Feb | FredF | Where's the 'cam, Philo? :-) |
| Sat 14 Feb | Philo | Yeah, I'm kicking myself - I was gonna bring my webcam but simply forgot it. Sorry! Philo |
| Sat 14 Feb | Stephen Jones | What's anime? |
| Sat 14 Feb | Tayssir John Gabbour | 'And we see as members of the male species attempt to move to higher concentration of females..' Well, if you want to try being a fan's boytoy, there are actually a couple good anime to research. I think you'll like: - Serial Experiments Lain - Blood, the Last Vampire - Ghost in the Shell I haven't seen much of Love Hina, but it seems to have humor that Americans can relate to and isn't as serious as the ones I've mentioned. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Mike Swieton | I dunno, I think the anime costumes are a bit more logical than the typical footbal superfan facepaint and such. Anime fans usually just dress up like characters from shows. The getup is a bit stranger perhaps, but makes more sense methinks. The huge crosses are likely references Trigun (one of my favorite series). Besides, everyone needs a hobby :) |
| Sat 14 Feb | Aussie Chick | The trouble with this is, that any geek guys flocking to this event are going to sit right beside Philo, watch the conga line and send messages to their geek buddies telling them how good it is......So close, and yet so far away.... (Any bets on how long this topic hangs around before it gets deleted? Or is the plight of geeking guys finding girls a topic that will get bolded?) |
| Sat 14 Feb | Mike Swieton | Hey, that just means it's easier for the rest of us ;) Only reason I'm not over there getting some Otaku chicks is because I'm in Michigan :) |
| Sat 14 Feb | Sum Dum Gai | The downside of it all is you'll have to watch Anime. I guess if you're desperate for sex it might be worth the sacrifice, but man, you'd have to be really desperate. ;) |
| Sun 15 Feb | Li-fan Chen | > Oh! And I just saw my first japanese guy in a kilt. (I hope it's a kilt. Could be a schoolgirl's skirt [shudder]) Yeah Philo, spend them back to the end of the bus, hell, let's setup separate bathrooms! One for the shorter race. |
| Sun 15 Feb | No Redeeming Social Value | If you're just going to oggle pretty girls, why not go to a nudie bar or watch Girls Gone Wild or download some pics from the net? |
| Sun 15 Feb | no name | a photo from Anime central 2002: http://www.northarc.com/~ke6isf/convention/acen/2002/misc/s_P1090050_c.jpg |
| Sun 15 Feb | Alex.ro | I don't want to score with *those* girls. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Aussie Chick | For reasons that are so blatantly obvious, you both deserve a good slap in the face. The topic is incredible off-topic (for the usally JoS stuff) but I never have a problem with that sort of thing, however dishing on some teenage girls because they are not considered pretty (in contemporary terms) is sad. - Forever standing up for the geeky ones. |
| Sun 15 Feb | No Redeeming Social Value | They're all under age as well. I hope this isn't an indication of Philo's personal tastes. |
| Sun 15 Feb | No Redeeming Social Value | For the record, I agree with Aussie Chick. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Clutch Cargo | For the record, I'm mad he limited it to single guys. Married guys like to chase after teenaged girls too. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Joe on Software | 'Married guys like to chase after teenaged girls too.' Here Here!!!! -Joe |
| Sun 15 Feb | Tayssir John Gabbour | Yeah, and you really have to ask whether you want a geek girl or a nerd girl. Or guy, whatever floats your boat. At the risk of offending people here, I don't know if you can really build something with someone, male or female, who enjoys Linux. Unless they're a nerd who just wants to score a little geek cred. I mean, in the geek world you have species like anime geeks and Linux geeks. In the nerd world, you've got a rich set of political nerds, med nerds, poetry nerds... and that's not even counting the overhyped math/science nerds. These nerds have evolved over millenia. If you need a little geekiness with your nerd, you've got CS and engineering nerds! Relatives of the anime/Linux geeks. So you have to weigh easy-pickin's with something a little more difficult but ultimately more mind-blowing. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Vince | ::cough:: www.sexiestgamer.com ::cough:: there. Now let us end this conversation for good. |
| Sun 15 Feb | Huh? | 'Yeah Philo, spend them back to the end of the bus, hell, let's setup separate bathrooms! One for the shorter race.' What the fuck!? Are you suggesting that his comment was somehow racist? Of jumping jeebus people. Lighten the fuck up. |
| Sun 15 Feb | guiIncognito | loving you is easy because you're beautiful! |
| Free legal advise | Sat 14 Feb | A regular poster to this forum |
| For salary and employment related matters. I guess itd be the consumer Protection Act. Any site? My sis joined GE call center in Gurgaon (close to Delhi) in October/November 2003, and after 2 days of going, she wasnt interested because of the odd timing, so she asked the HR if they had another process in the morning sometime. They asked her to wait. Since then there was no word, then just a few days ago, she got a call from the HR contending my sister had been receiving salary from GE. We were clueless about what she said so we checked the bank account theyd opened for my sis. There was a credit of 1 month salary of January 2004, which was GEs mistake. We even did not know about it. In fact, all the time we got letters from the bank saying there was no money in the newly opened account for so many months, and asking what the matter was. The bank kept luring us to opt for their schemes. On checking with the bank about the 1 month salary, my sis called GE and told the HR about the credit. The HR asked my sis to wait until she called her back. Just yesterday, we got some legal shit from GE saying we had been getting salary from November 2003 and not telling them. I want to know what legal stand we have. This is not only a lie but it is also very embarrasing and has caused us enough worry. We did not know nothing, GE hr calls my sis in Feb 1st week to find out if weve been receiving salary also contending weve been doing so from November 2003. We check with the bank, there is a 1 month credit towards salary of January 2004, we call back and tell the GE folks about it. The HR says, alright, are you still interested in the job, you did not even put up a resignation. My sis clearly told her repeatedly that she was interested in continuing if they could put her in another shift. The HR tells us to hold on. Then they send these legal papers only 3 to 4 days letter. What recourse do I have? Where can I seek legal help on the Net for free? I am also planning to talk to the GE guys about this openly but my sis and my mom are going out of town, down south of india for a few days. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Bored Bystander | >> GE call center in Gurgaon (close to Delhi) The dark side of offshoring... JOS is international. A response from the US or Europe will be meaningless. You need local legal resources in India. |
| Sat 14 Feb | A regular poster to this forum | yeah, I'd be doing that BB. just a rant: the lawyers down here are not that sophisticated and knowledgeable, so it seems to me and those that are, are not easily within reach. Three of them I know would have cleared their exams by fluke or by reading a few champion guides overnight. The judiciary along with the police here are as corrupt as one can imagine. Yet, there'll be some good local advise I should be able to find over the Net. I used to see one learned gentleman of a lawyer on the National Television Network (Doordarshan) some years ago. May be, I'll try and seek his advise if I can spot him. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Stephen Jones | They've cocked up. what do the legal letters say. What do you want. The problem with a good lawyer is that he will cost you maybe 5,000 rupees (taking Sri Lanka costs as a yardstick), which would be a fair proportion of the money in dispute. First tell us what they are demanding, and then decide what you want. Your explanation is much too vague at present. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Huh? | What's the big deal? If they auto-deposited money into an account just get them to agree that it was their mistake and give back the money. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Kyralessa | IANAL, but I'd say if they're stupid enough to pay you the money, keep it. Now a few weeks ago my job overpaid me by 16 hours and I _did_ tell them. That's because (a) I wanted to be honest about it, and (b) I figured they'd catch it sooner or later, and I didn't want to count on money that wasn't mine. But if a company I'd only worked for a couple days was (a) stupid enough not to notice I hadn't been at work for a month, and (b) rude enough to send me the kind of legal crap they seem to have sent you, instead of calling and politely saying, 'Oops, we screwed up,' then I'd withdraw it in cash or put it in a new account and let it be _their_ problem to get it back. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Don't tolerate abuse | Try a call centre union. Find one by asking the Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU). http://citu.org.in/Defaulta.htm |
| Sat 14 Feb | Don't tolerate abuse | Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh: http://www.bms.org.in/home.htm Your government's labour department: http://www.labour.nic.in/ |
| Sun 15 Feb | Inidan Developer in India | Pay back the money. Write a letter saying 'Thanks, but no, thank you' and if you are a developer/programmer send a quotation for debugging and/or re-designing their ERP Software by registered post. I'm serious. They'll leave you alone. Regards KayJay |
| Is there a good free weblog? | Sat 14 Feb | Ravi |
| I have used blogger.com before, but its too simple to use. I like typepad, but its not free. Where do I turn to? |
| Sat 14 Feb | www.marktaw.com | Movable type? If you can install it on your server. http://www.movabletype.org/ |
| Sat 14 Feb | Ravi | Thanks. I will download it and play around. I don't really have a live server to install it. Right now I am using blog-city.com which has more features than blogger. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Wade Winningham | http://wordpress.org is another good one. |
| Sat 14 Feb | FredF | If you only need to host a single blog, the Perl-written GreyMatter could be good enough. It generates flat files, so no need for a DBMS. http://www.greymatterforums.com/ |
| Sun 15 Feb | Clay Dowling | My Newsreel package might work as well, although it doesn't support comments. http://www.lazarusid.com/newsreel.shtml |
| Manager asleep for 5 mths, wakes up at project end | Fri 13 Feb | Savage |
| I started a job last year. I inherited a project written by 2 software developers that left the company in quick succession of each other. The code was a mess. Almost everything they did was wrong. Im not talking about style here. They had done about 20% of the project and every little bit of it was 50 - 80% incomplete. It had layers of bugs under bugs. Loads of code commented out. It had 0 usable functionality. They obviously never tested the code during development and lept from one feature to another, never finishing one single thing. The fools didnt even know you can feed one select query into another and went on a spree of writing 135 stored queries. After all that work, they couldnt even load a logical unit back from the database. As such the applicaiton could write database rows (even that barely), but not actually view or edit them via the user interface afterwards. It suggests to me they were making something easy difficult and spent alot of time messing about when 1 line of SQL was all they needed. Over the last 5 months Ive rewritten the application from scratch. Ive throughly tested code throughout development and as far I can figure this result has produced good quality, robust code. Im almost near the point of finishing it. Nobody has told me what to do. I thought a lot about the work and solved all the problems. However now a manager has woken up. He hasnt bothered to understand what the code I wrote is doing. I know this simply by the questions he is asking me. He is looked at random bits of it - all the bits on the outskirts of the actual code doing the real work - and is making comments about how it can be changed. His comments are on the lines of adding empty layers to the system doing nothing more than 1 to 1 mappings. He also wants me to start using functions with 50 parameters. I feel this last statement of his suggests he isnt a quite on the ball. I did point out to him today that what he wants done will simply be code with no functionality. Just a huge setter method with a silly 50 parameter interface. He didnt disagree with me. He agreed but still didnt change his mind. I do wonder why over the last 5 months when I have been writing the system he hasnt decided to comment before. Why just a few weeks before the time the client wants it, has he woken up? Why isnt code that works valued? Why did two developers produce absolutely dribble over a year and nobody in the company realise? |
| Fri 13 Feb | the richest slacker | I've produced dribble for over a year and the main reason is because no one notices or cares, and I still get paid. I'm having a lot of fun reading books, learning how to use audio software, and whatnot. If I could cure my web surfing addiction, I could probably learn latin or quantum mechanics with all my free time. When my manager wakes up, that will be my cue to either start doing some work, or look for another job. I really don't anticipate that happening though, unless my manager's manager's manager needs to start seeing some results somewhere lower down in the food chain. My manager is also just coasting along doing very little of value. Seriously, what I've said is true. I'm not too proud of it, but hey the pay beats working at starbucks. Answering your questions is hard without additional context. I work for an unbelievably huge multinational with unbelievably huge revenues. Even though I get paid a good salary, my salary is still a rounding error when it comes to the grand scheme of things. Every large company like this has unbelievable amounts of inefficiency in the form of people like me. If you are working in a similar organization, I would question why you are working so hard. In time, you will learn not to care. However if you are working somewhere your program actually matters, your company might be hosed. But I really can't say without more information. |
| Fri 13 Feb | Brad Wilson | "I don't tell you how to manage. Why are you telling me how to write code? Why did you hire me if you want to do it yourself?" |
| Sat 14 Feb | Simon Lucy | or, perhaps more succinctly... '...and the second word is 'off'' |
| Sat 14 Feb | anon | ...and you're suggesting that this is an unusual situation...???? |
| Sat 14 Feb | one programmer's opinion | Savage, Nice post! Lots of information provided. Even so, I am unable to answer your why questions. There can be a multitude of reasons why your manager was asleep at the wheel for over five months. It sounds like you are working on an in-house software application or a small software system. If this is the case, your situation certainly isn't uncommon. Many companies will hire a programmer and expect him to be able to have the breadth of knowledge required to properly manage, design, and complete whatever work he is told to perform. In situations such as this, the PM does his own thing and rarely interacts with you at work until whatever you are working on is close to completion. I would like to tell you that you are working for a bad boss and you should seek employment elsewhere, unfortunately, you will find that most organizations operate pretty much the same way. That is, they dump most of the work and accountability onto the lowly programmer because nobody within the organization has a clue when it comes to running an IT department where most employees are happy and productive. Do you know why the two previous programmers left your employer? |
| Sat 14 Feb | Tom H | One easy way do deal with a meddler like that is to pay close attention to what they want changed. Write it down, or even better, enter it into a 'To Do' repository. But make it clear that it can't be done right away; it's just too late for the release you're working on now without significantly impacting the schedule, but it'll definitely be on the list for the next release. You can keep that story going for years. |
| Sat 14 Feb | Immature programmer | Ahhh ... the joys of producing dribble. 'The richest slacker' has it right. I used to work work for a particularly political company where certain simple projects were deemed 'cutting edge' and other difficult stuff was deemed easy. These judgements were made by technically incompetent management with no input from actual programmers. After toiling away at difficult tasks, I was given a very simple, easy app to write. But the perception by the idiotic management was that I had finally grown enough as a developer to handle this complex and precious project. So, I just futzed around with it, all the while studying and getting all the fashionable certifications at the time, MCP, MCSD, MCthis MCthat, etc., eventually lining up a very high-paying job. This was the late 90's though ... 'Savage' asks 'Why isn't code that works valued?' Hehe, that question really strikes a nerve. Same problem in the situation I just described. I was dealing with managers that would masturbate over buzzwords, pretty UML diagrams, etc., but didn't care enough about software that worked well and made customers happy. Software ... well ... ought to work, shouldn't it?!?!? ARE F*&^ING UML DIAGRAMS MORE IMPORTANT THAT WORKING CODE?!?!? Well apparently in certain corporate cultures, the answer is yes. This really doesn't should like a bad situation though. I think Savage should try to hammer this project out and then take advantage of his dumb company the way his predecessors apparently did. Learn new technologies, take up new hobbies, and look for a more rewarding job in a better culture. Or maybe not; I'm making a lot of assumptions here, and the situation I described was a long time ago ... |
| Sat 14 Feb | Savage | I'm working for a consultancy doing work for external clients. The consultancy isn't a software one though. It does business type things. Software is only a very small part of their work. I'm fact the company only has two software developers - me with 7 years experience and someone fresh out of university. I don't know why the previous two programmers left. One left a month or two before I arrived. The other one resigned a week before my job interview. I can guess why they left though. They left either because they knew the project could never be completed or simply because they couldn't stand the silly views of the manager. A co |