I don't particularly care for Java primarily because it really is verbose, but the reason Java is so prevalent is that it is an excellent middleware language solution that made it possible in the late 90's and early aughts for companies that would never have managed to build these systems with C++ (just not enough C++ people who don't hang themselves and your company 5 times a day.)

You could argue that if they couldn't do it with C++ they shouldn't have been doing it anyhow, but there'd be hundreds of thousands fewer jobs in the software industry as a result.

Wait... is this in lieu of 'Federal pound you in the ass' prison? ;)

You cynical old bastard ;).

I know what you mean though. It is incredibly difficult to assess the valuable from the detritus.

Apparently wisdom doesn't come with age...

Atlanta too.

That's like saying that the way to learn how to swim is to dump everyone in deep water and see who takes to it naturally...

Ours was first semester of second year, computer engineering and assembly language. We used an old MIPS chip. Started with 27 people including 3 women, finished with 6. I had the highest grade in the course, a B-. It was rough, but not necessarily because of the topic - more that we covered so much so quickly.

I think the scariest API doc I ever read was the one for Word's *.doc format. The stuff Microsoft has/had to support for the sake of backward's compatibility was simply astounding.

You had me at Bacon...

Honestly, from reading the translated article, I get the feeling that a lot of the issues were because other agencies outside of Munich had difficulty interacting with them and this translated into Munich user unhappiness.

...seriously, why wouldn't they?

It is charmingly naive to think that morality/ethics would prevent a CEO (in ANY country) from doing whatever they thought would generate them the most money with the smallest risk...

...tech companies.

That doesn't mean it's good enough, but having 20% female tech workers? That's great compared to my experience in the industry.

It was 4 years into my career before I met my first female software engineer at work, and there were two out of 80. This was the valley back in the 90's though.

Why did someone mark this as troll when it's clear I'm simply saying that Microsoft treats the Surface as a "loss leader" in business market?

FFS people, get over yourselves. I don't care what OS you use or whose latest 'shiny thing' you want to buy. They're all tools in the toolbox as far as I'm concerned.