Some companies offer a technical track in parallel with the management track so senior employees who wish to advance and remain technical can do so. And even someone who is a "manager" can still keep their hands dirty in some organizations ... my manager just celebrated his 30th anniversary with our company (which wasn't his first programming gig), and he still writes code almost every day. Good code for the most part.

A lot depends on the company you work for and perhaps also the specific area.

Early in 2011, right? Am I gonna have to buy a Roku to do what my 360 can not?

Sure ... you're fragmenting the crap out of the datastream, splitting it up into a zillion little packets and associated headers. With a dedicated data stream, a good resending algorithm, and a nice sliding-window algorithm to optimize block sizes should the line get noisy, you can get a pretty efficient transfer going. Zmodem was very good, and I used a version of KERMIT once (SKERMIT?) at Unisys that did something quite similar.

The key is getting to an interview, and these days that isn't an easy task. Not easy at all...

That would be a function of real-world experience ... wouldn't it?

Or an MBA, right? :-(

(1) This isn't "bricking" the Tivo. When ReplayTV stopped supplying guide data to my DVR, it still worked just fine but more like a VCR where you manually set everything. It sounds like Tivo is the same.

You must have been paying month to month? My lifetime ReplayTV is still going strong, and is still being supposed by schedule data from ReplayTV. Though I think you can work around it these days (Schedules Direct via WiRNS).

I know it's a reality, but that doesn't make it logical.

How is defending oneself against a potential lawsuit not logical?

They aren't cool in a lot of corporations, either. :-)

I ran into this same situation over 20 years ago when I started working for a mainframe software company ... some of the guys who had been there for 15-20 years were upset at the rates some of the new people were bringing in.

As long as companies hold skillsets as being more important than employees, you will probably still see it. In that case, though, it was more a case of standard corporate raises being less than the starting pay of the then-growing programming market.

It sucks to be on the short end of that scenario, and "job hopping for more money" isn't quite as simple as many make here it out to be.

Sometimes it actually feels good to provide a smoothly running system to customers.

It isn't all bad stuff...

Ah, but which technologies to learn? It isn't possible for one person to keep up on all programming technologies, especially when companies tend to frown upon people doing things which aren't part of their formal project tree.

Once upon a time it was incumbent on employers to provide training for their personnel ... thank goodness not all companies have gone the way of throwaway employees...

The fact that Microsoft gained most of its market position through illegal actions is lost on most people.

It's nice that Gates is "living the dream", but it's sad that he had to get there by using such underhanded and shady means.

He could lay off 1/2 of the programming staff. Warm bodies are probably his #1 expense, ya know?

If the core product sucks, chances are "new features" won't mean too much. Maybe it's time for him to reevaluate the market for his products (and for you to reevaluate your future there).

Eek! The redcoats are coming!! :-)

Sure, but for what value of $Limited...?

It isn't the idea of limiting government that's usually the issue, but the degree to which the limitation should occur.