I commented on a similar article the other day... In reflection over the past couple of days, it occurs to me that the things that they are doing to make programming 'easier' for the average person is making it much more complex for me. For me to be functionally adept (I'm the type of person that needs to know how and why, not just what) - I need to understand how the languages are doing things - how do things boil down to system calls? This is becoming more and more abstracted and obfuscated and it makes it very difficult for me to grasp the concepts of 'what is really going on'. How can anyone be anything but average if we can't fully understand the nature of what is going on - or how could we expand on anything? Call me old fashioned, but if a person can't grasp the concept of pointers then they just aren't adequate for software development - because the direction that things are moving in in order to make software development something that can be performed by the masses is really dumbing down and neutering the potential to make a computer do things that aren't just run of the mill. One example is taking things like threading and making it part of a language, instead of what it really is - part of the platform. Threading has no place in C++ the language - it belongs in a class library - but not the language.

are you serious? to me it's the exact opposite. I think it's the best example there is of how - when we're truly motivated to do something incredible, we actually can.

I kinda agree... I mean, I never go out of my way to artificially complicate my code. I'm not one of those people that uses macros just for the sake of showing how clever I can make them. The problem is that - to use your example - how many people do we have now that actually learn how to derive the Pythagorean Theorem? How do we build on that? The gifted people that COULD build on it, can't - because they're sandboxed into a process, or a higher level abstraction. My kids - they were in awe of the Saturn V, the F-1 Engine - all of that technology (with the slide rules!) and knowhow that we had back in the 60's (after watching Apollo 13)... I told them that I didn't think we had the capacity to do that anymore. Then I read an article recently where they were looking at the F-1 engine like it was some alien artefact. Point being, I just don't think that we value our smart people anymore because we just stick them into the same process as every dope that has a connection to get his job. We need find the smart people, encourage them with financial incentives and get THEM to write the code.

I've been in this field for 20+ years now, and I don't necessarily (in fact, I usually don't) agree with whatever the current trend is (which is probably why my karma is negative). One underlying trend, has been to make software something that can be made by anyone - to remove the requirement of having a special mind that is able to think through algorithms and code. This has generally been accomplished through process, and abstraction. Process - if we can describe a method well enough, then anyone should be able to follow it to it's logical conclusion. Abstraction - we keep adding layers upon layers in an effort to simplify and streamline that which is a complex thing (lots of numbers in sequence to control a microprocessor and it's accompanying hardware). You can probably tell that I'm not a great fan of either - though I'm really really trying to not be a negative type, and to go with the flow more. But I can't help my fundamental feelings that there is just no substitute for a smart individual with a gift of understanding the logic of code. I'm always against process because it takes the gift that i was given and neutralizes it. Personal feelings aside, I just don't think that all the process in the world is ever going to get ahead of the curve that is the battle between perfectly functional software and bugs.

As an efficient worker with Linux. Most people spend all of their time dicking around with things that should be seamless and simple. Sure, they did all kinds of "work" that day, but people pay for products - not the 50% of the time that the developer spends screwing with something as complex and do-it-yourself as git.

We create jobs, not eliminate them. This "simplify the tax code" nonsense just can't be done without taking this artificially complex system that so many morons have mastered and make a living with - and turning it into negative job creation! If I were a rich guy, I'd create 10 jobs - I'd have 10 guys run circles around my house every day. They'd feel like they were doing work for sure, and I'd pay them, so that would feel like work. This is the US economy. You can't just eliminate these jobs... The stuff that used to make this country great has been completely circumvented. Let's all pump money into GM instead of letting it go, and creating a vacuum by which some novel and innovative company could come along and do something spectacular (tesla?). Hey - dial up connections became useless once cable modems came along - but wait, how is AOL going to continue to make it's money? Let's confuse the shit out of all the morons that run the courts and see if we can find a meaningless way to keep that model alive (they almost did).

i agree with this 100%. Even make it a minute, for example... So trades only execute every minute on the minute - everything just buffers up until that second hand reaches zero again. I can't see any negative to this, and it would certainly seem to eliminate the shenanigans of using connection latencies to skim off of the inefficiencies of the market.

How do we know that most of the universe is made of matter? What tells us that the big bang didn't send matter in one direction and anti-matter in the other? Can we tell that entire galaxies aren't made up of anti-matter versus matter? I'm not suggesting that I know anything, I'm really asking anyone who knows... Does light from antimatter tell us one way or another?

As time goes on, old business models lose their justification to exist. When cable modems first showed up, AOL became an artifact - and I was blown away that they were trying to change the law to make themselves relevant and were actually managing to confuse people enough to make it a debate. Car dealerships seem to me to be the same sort of thing. Even as a kid, before the internet was prevalent, I wondered why we needed these glorified middlemen. Everyone buys cars - if you know what you want, why should you have to pay a fee to a middleman instead of ordering direct from the factory? The fact that a good percentage of commercials on TV are produced by car dealerships tells me that they're big business. So I ask again, why do we need people between me and my product taking a LARGE amount of money just to facilitate a transaction? So... They're going to try to change the rules to keep themselves relevant. I think this is a serious miscarriage of justice. Go Tesla Motors. Shame on any politician that supports this nonsense.

Where does a gravity wave theoretically come from? All I can imagine is that they would come from a mass increasing or decreasing in magnitude, and I don't know of any way that happens.

I had a hard time explaining to my wife and kids how the plane is missing. We live in an age where our physical locations are stored in a database and can be looked up at any time. After Aaron Hernandez was suspected of murdering someone, they used his cell phone data to tell us exactly where he was and when. So I don't understand how it can cost anything to know where this plane, or any of it's cellphone carrying occupants were at any time. My point is that it seems to me that the technology exists and is accessible. If we can find out where I stopped on my way to work and exactly what time - why can't we find out where this plane was using similar technology?

The question was, "Is there a place you'd rather be but forgo because of the cost of living, or a place you'd consider simply because it would amplify your salary? ". It's not fair that I continue to get bad karma because some assholes don't read or comprehend the questions.

I live in MA and have been in software for 20+ years. I've had a lot of good job offers from CA, but was never able to take them... THe salary isn't that much more than it is in Boston, but there's a pretty decent bump in real estate. If you've got kids and need to move into a higher rent town, it just never seems feasible (for a guy who mostly lives paycheck to paycheck anyway).

I dunno. I think engineering has less of a value placed on it on the East coast (Boston/New York) - as there's a more sales driven mindset. I don't have any data or evidence, but I suspect they hire a lot of foreigners in NYC who come from a place where their standard of living wasn't so great. Then the sales people can pay them barely enough money to survive, and expect them to live stacked one on top of the other in a studio apartment.

Current wisdom has us do high input (eat lots of good foods) and high output (lots of exercise) which in turn gives us a high metabolism, and if done right - we can stay in good shape. I've always thought that it also has us burn through our mileage faster too. I think the key to longevity is low metabolism. Of course, I don't pay much attention to it, because the likelihood of dying from something else prevents me from worrying about running out of road.