It used to be only super burglers needed to don the (invariably black) gloves and/or wipe their fingerprints from every surface. Now, it's become a common concern.

I can see it now, nestled eye-level with the toothbrushes and mouthwash, in a spring green box with a smart creme-colored swoosh on the side:

SWASN'T ME! (tm)
retractable screen wipes
(attractive wrist band included!)

A joint venture between Swifter and Swatch, of course...

A lot of the discussion is justification for ownership on the grounds of utility, style, and so forth.

Fine.

But i still wonder: Does ownership of this product (or any other, really) help one develop empathy for those for whom such justifications are not fitting?

Much twistings heard tell to escape the uncomfortabe "elite" monicker; what of the equally important "selfish" portion?

Face it: The Buddha was elite, too.

Ahhh, can't resist...

Real hackers don't dread unpleasant tasks. They write code that (perhaps write code that) does the unpleasant task for them.

Nobody can prevent war, famine and suffering.
Nobody can save the economy.
Nobody can brush your teeth for you.

Vote for Nobody!

Unfortunately, it's also true that "nobody has access to your fingerprints". :-O

... is such a lonely word.
everyone is so untrue.

Zarf sez:

Fast and easy are traps.

In the sense that gravity is a trap, yes.

That is, it is a force (of marketing, primarily) that pulls one toward a conclusion, as gravity pulls the lesser mass towards the greater (though, to be more precise, both exhibit displacement, proportionally). Given a situation such as the budding programmer approaching the world of programming from space, with its massive history, refined thought (theoretic and practical), and culture, "fast and easy" might result in a crash landing on (in)hospitable shores, a permanent orbit, or a tangential flyby of brief duration.

Much depends on the wit and will of this budding programmer in the presence of this force. I tend to think the inexperienced overrate their capacity in this regard, unfortunately, and that's why "fast and easy", though it be potentially valid and fulfilling, does not sit well with me generally.

(Perhaps that's why I remain stuck on Earth, still...) :-/

I am a programmer around long enough to literally hear bulldozers and chain-link fences clinking around big holes in the ground at the sight of the word "developer". (Insert more hallucinogenic curmudgeonly grumbling here.)

More on topic, I have no qualms admitting that "fast and easy" programming "solutions" might indeed be so, but still can't help but wonder what else is missing. What are the consequences of "fast and easy" programming?

Those words bring to mind news articles of car and train wrecks, where speed is always an aggravating factor, and attaining that speed never seems too difficult or too ambitious at the onset, prior to the accident.

A wreck is definitely not desirable if one aspires to Quality (in the ZAMM --Pirsig sense), for a wreck completely removes the moment of perception from the scene, by removing the perceiver (or more precisely, the motivating force (perhaps in the gravest cases, the life) of the perceiver).

I think, rather than pushing "fast and easy", a better pair of adjectives would be "strong and flexible" (like a rope, or a towel, say). The programming languages, environments and mindsets based on these fundamental metaphors admit guidance from a mentor (on the "other end" of the experience divide, pulling) quite readily.

The consequences may in the end result in "fast and easy" development of the program, of the programmer, of the mindset, anyway. It depends not only on the budding programmer, but also on the relationship between the teacher and the student (both of whom may be the same programmer, why not?).

I think you make sense.

What you are saying, essentially, is that HURD has Linux FUSE baked-in.

Given this is some PR piece, it is still telling what nuggets are exposed (in the summary, which is more than enough for this reader). Let's see here:

• police escort
  WTF?! Yeah, who doesn't know that "special feeling" you get with a police car on your tail for the last 20 minutes of a post-midnight excursion. Last time that happened to me (in Cupertino of all places, go figure), I didn't really think "yeah, this is just like Microsoft", but maybe next time that's what will be on my mind!
• MBA intern
  WTF?!**2 [0] Can't feature a tech type, since Google is more attractive to those. Can't feature a visionary, since those tend to require freedom (to have visions and, you know, innovate). Besides, those would also find a better siren song from Google. What's left? Larval parasitic bureaucrat-functionary types (i.e., the MBA crowd), that's what. Possibily to ameliorate this obvious weakness, there's a nice non-WASP name thrown in the mix.
• private screening
  Feh. Must you consort with minors?

Thanks, Microsoft. Now, I need to go wash my keyboard...

-

[0] (props to Backus -- he did have the balls to dis von Neumann, after all)

Umm, you keep preparing your little tyke jd-wannabe for the slave pits, why not? It's certainly better to rot from the inside, right? At least that way, precious thumb-fu master won't have any useful organs to harvest. Good plan!

On the other hand, an ignorant (but insufficiently insouciant) indolence is very much prized by the livestock industry. Yum!

marble more, you hobbled whore!
rot your brain, for highest score!
cauldron filled with fun-fooled
children "skilled" but unschooled:
less/time ground/under, o life/low lock/mor!

Perhaps the subjects were exercising some kind of innate (as opposed to imposed) subconscious aversion to violence, even as their conscious "do this task and get paid" desire was driving.

Television is passive so such an aversion is easy; you are not physically participating in the (depicted) violence anyway, so the brain uses the Numbing Technique. The result is that associated imagery (advertisements) are also blurred.

A video game is active so such an aversion is more difficult; your brain is directing your muscles to do the (depicted) violence, which is incompatible with Numbing. The way out then, perhaps, is to use the LookAside Technique; averting your "active" attention, even if not your eyes (as mentioned in the summary). The result is that associated imagery in your peripheral vision is soaked up and its recall improved.

In any case, this spells trouble for Ender Wiggen wannabes...

• which stands for Air Traffic Control,
• which reminds me of playing that game in Emacs the early 1990s (the source was called atc.el, but that doesn't seem to be on the net anymore -- kudos to anyone who can post it here, saving it from otherwise imminent obscurity),
• which is neither here nor there,
• but that's what bubbled up from the dregs of memory,
• which is what happens when you the author encounters YA TLA in TFS,
• like ATC, LSD, ATP, MCP, MCM, etc etc etc.

mods: This post is on-topic because its author is old, too! (grumble grumble)

You sound like a reasonably clued-in professor; I wish more of mine had been like you. I like your testing system, and being a software nerd, would like to offer help in automating it to the point where you can get back some of those weekend hours for more enjoyable activities. For me, the benefit would be a worthy project to hack on, and for you, I imagine, an incentive to keep doing right by your students and your area of study.

What do you say?

(BTW, if there is already activity afoot re automation of your testing system, I'd appreciate a pointer to online discussion about it.)

Yeah, but Venice is a City of Love. Even when in Italy it's quite understandable if you don't take your laptop there.