Maximum PC

I think that my current lack of exercise and pathetic diet is huge problem right now. It really bugs me. You're going to laugh, but I have come to realize that I need a wearable computer! How ridiculous (note that it is spelled correctly) is that?! I'll post something in the HH later - assuming that I don't come to my senses first.

That's great.

By far the smartest person in our faculty (among the undergrads) was a woman. She is brilliant. So much so, in fact, that she got bored with CS and switched over to pure Math. She starts grad school this fall at one of the best schools in Canada, and she has been pushed straight to her PhD. (in Canada, you are supposed to do a Masters first, and then move on to a PhD programme ... only the best are allowed to go straight to their doctorate.

Edited to remove personal information that may incriminate her, or me.

I won't laugh, if you promise to send me one as well.

Lack of exercise and a bad diet are sure-fire ways to reduce / destroy your emotional stability. :S They need to be made priorities, but that is so hard in the western lifestyle.

I think it was an AWESOME read, and I have to read it again.

I'm going to share it with my team tomorrow.

He points out a huge superset of issues I have noticed over the years with regards to getting work done in a computer-related job.

Instead of all those crappy team-building exercises, and bogus management trends, there should be some attention paid to this...

I'm glad you like it, Logik!, and even happier that you found it useful in a professional setting.

I agree about those team-building exercises. I once had to take a management team rock-climbing ... god that was terrifying. It was a whole group of alpha-males who were constantly butting heads and almost killing each other. Never. Again.

You don't say? You mean that all those team-building exercises and management trends are nothing more than waste of my time and productivity? And that instead, we should resolve to more realistic issues regarding management techniques instead of using buzzwords? By golly, Logik...I'll tell management tomorrow[1]!!!!!



[1] not really, but yeah, I concur

So .. by 'management' you mean your profs, and by 'tell them tomorrow' you mean 'think it really loudly in class'?

Sort of, I was going to walk into my old job and tell my boss, and say "see, all of your management trends and team-building exercises worked great! Now everybody hates each other and productivity in this place is below zero! Your use of the mighty buzzword and predictable management techniques is flawless! Beautiful!"

Ah sarcasm ... a potent weapon in the arsenal of geeks everywhere.

It addresses the wrong problem. Only in the military can you "force" people to work together, and that only works because they are, in fact, stuck together.

On the outside, this is not nearly the same scenario...

I imagine the guns help.

I was so mad by that part - the silly Google and Java/COBOL comments did me in. Jip is right... he should have stuck to the core topic. Reading a few other articles on his site, he does make some interesting points, but he seriously undermines his position with some ridiculous (note that it is spelled correctly) statements that are easily refuted. His dislike, even hatred, of Common Lisp, Ada, Java and a few other languages is almost comical. I guess writing a missle defense system in Ada is not the kind of thing real hackers consider challenging. I guess the Java API isn't quite large enough to fit his criteria of a great language either. Makes me wonder if he ever read a book about Java or wrote a program in the language. He doesn't have to confess to never writing a Java program or even reading a Java book. It is obvious that he hasn't done either. He is a good writer though - even if he does make me want to throw something at the monitor.

I would be interested in his opinion concerning agile programming methodologies, especially a comparison between what he calls a 'hacker' and what they refer to as a 'cowboy coder'. It would also be interesting, and probably very amusing, to see how he reconciles these two stereotypes - the one being responsible for 90% of the worlds great code (in his opinion) and the other responsible for disrupting and decreasing the overall productivity of the rest of the team becase she won't work with the other team members (the opinion of many agile practitioners). In last years NBA finals, two of the world's best hackers were demolished by a well run team. At first I thought this was going to be an akward analogy, but it also works well on another level too. Great design does often spring forth from one or two people, and there is strong support for this notion in software engineering circles, so I guess he could argue that coach Brown is the 'hacker', the person with the vision, and that Koby and Shaq are merely "cowboy coders". Anyways, I ramble.

So will we be seeing you around these parts more?

That is a common problem among people who haven't learned to write properly. They throw in every thought that comes to mind, rather than concentrating on their thesis and driving their point home with solid, expository writing.

/me shudders to remember teaching first year english to engineering students. God that was hard.




This whole folder is full of great rambling. We have fewer threads, fewer posts, but I think WAY more content / thread than any other folder.

:proud:

Anyway .. if he wrote on that subject, you'd just be off on another rant.

LOL...

I agree w/ the content/thread, hell, probably even content/post too.

OK - must practice - TCC 2004 starts in Sept. and I want to be in top mental and better physical and emotional shape this time around.

My sister has access to a C7 work. And she wears a Browning 9mm whenever she is allowed.

I love my sis, but frankly, she scares me a little.

Er... Probably not.

Could never stand this type of forum format.

you're just too lazy to make the transition...

"The programmers you'll be able to hire to work on a Java project won't be as smart as the ones you could get to work on a project written in Python. "

LMFAO......I busting my spleen!!!!!

I TOLD you guys to learn Python!!!!

No wonder Gadget is in a tizzy

lol

"Good hackers insist on control. This is part of what makes them good hackers: when something's broken, they need to fix it. You want them to feel this way about the software they're writing for you. You shouldn't be surprised when they feel the same way about the operating system."

No - but you should tell them to STFU and use some of that "greatness" for the task at hand.

I do agree with this though:
"One, the CTO couldn't be a first rate hacker, because to become an eminent NT developer he would have had to use NT voluntarily, multiple times, and I couldn't imagine a great hacker doing that; and two, even if he was good, he'd have a hard time hiring anyone good to work for him if the project had to be built on NT. [2]"

I don't agree fully with this (I will explain):
"Really there should be two articles: one about what to do if you are yourself a programmer, and one about what to do if you're not. And the second could probably be condensed into two words: give up."

And this is part of my explaination:
"I call it the design paradox. You might think that you could make your products beautiful just by hiring a great designer to design them. But if you yourself don't have good taste, how are you going to recognize a good designer? By definition you can't tell from his portfolio. And you can't go by the awards he's won or the jobs he's had, because in design, as in most fields, those tend to be driven by fashion and schmoozing, with actual ability a distant third. There's no way around it: you can't manage a process intended to produce beautiful things without knowing what beautiful is."

The problem is that a great hacker my have no clue about front end design. Recently I programmed a water sample evaluation program that had been done twice before. The first program was out of data and never really made it past beta. The second used a slick gui interface and was upto date. And yet, I was told mine was better. The reason is not that I am a great hacker (although I did program it in python ), the reason was that I actually know what people who use the type of program want. The complaints are not against the gui - but how it operates. If the PM had spent an hour with an end user and really paid attension I never would have stood a chance of making anything but a bad knock off.

I liked the article, but its a bit to much of a pep rally for programmers. There is some good material - but it gets offset by farsweeping and unfounded generalizations.

Manta

<voice = Stone Cold>
I am going to KILL that Bastard! Tear out his damn spleen!
</voice>



Don't forget the extensive BS...

What do you think I meant by "pep rally"?

Manta