On point one I agree with you 100%. For some reason companies/recruiters don't believe that you know something unless you have experience with it. In a start up this is not as true. But larger companies want someone with 5 years experience in some obscure library that you might use a single call from. And recruiters will often ignore any skills you put on your resume that are not from a previous job. For example, I know linux, I used to build my own Kernel, I would switch back and forth between linux/windows as I would get annoyed with each operating system. But since recruiters do not see linux experience in a previous job, they assume I don't know it. What's more, most jobs asking for Linux experience just want you to be able to move around the shell and execute gcc/javac/whatever and know how to do a few "cd"'s, "ls"'s, etc....

The other thing is that if somehow the company can be convinced that the developer knows the technology, more often than not there will be no additional compensation. So where is the incentive?

I don't use calculus or probability. But I do use combinatorics to assess the run time of algorithms. I also use set theory frequently in databases (union, intersection). Not to mention topological sorting for job scheduling. As a system administrator I would think you might use topological sorting as well in order to compute the schedule for a set of jobs when taking into account their dependencies.

Nevertheless the majority of CS (at least for me) was all math (linear algebra, differential equations, calculus, probability, discrete math, etc.) and I'm not really using super advanced math. But there are some jobs that use it (computer graphics, scientific computing, etc...), I just can't seem to get them :( Hell even data mining (which is becoming more popular in the corporate world) uses some advanced math (a lot of it uses advanced linear Algebra). For example Principle Component Analysis (PCA) which is used to extract a set of features from a dataset is an application of eigenvectors/eigenvalues.

Well ask yourself this. Is the boss going to say "We're working on a new project and I want you to learn how to program for the iPhone, I'll make it worth your while with a 30% pay increase if you succeed.". Hell no, he's going to say learn how to program the iPhone and get this done.... It will fall under the scope of your job duties. If you learn it and do it, to reap the benefit you are going to have switch jobs probably.

Financially I would think for the company it would make sense in some cases to set aside an hour a day or even a day a week for the developer to learn the technology on his own, but often they'd rather just get a plug and play solution.

There are definitely some people who do not learn anything new since they left college. I don't know that they become useless because a lot of the core programming principles are the same. Many of the same languages have been in use for 10 years or more, ie Java/C/C++. It's true that the frameworks do change and if they aren't able to learn those then there is a problem. Still not everyone needs to know the hottest framework, people who know enough Java or even C++ to maintain old boring business objects have a place as well.

In any case, the reality is that if you read TFA it seems like the guy who complained was the lead developer (you generally have to learn new stuff to get there) and would have been willing to learn the technology, but management said there was no time. For some reason IT management in general seems to favor more plug and play solutions. What's really pathetic is that the mobile application development experience is probably not more than one or two classes at the university in an elective that a developer could probably pick up by reading a book and playing for a month or two.

But let's assume the lead developer learned the mobile application development on his own. Is it realistic to assume the company would pay him 30% more? Would the company give him any sort of compensation at all, or most likely consider it just part of his normal duty to the company? If these skills are so hot, it seems to me the only way to get more money is to jump ship, or have an offer and get the company to make a counter offer. I'm sure the 30% difference is not just not having the mobile skills, often if you stay at a company for a long time your salary stagnates. Most companies give 3-7% raises each year. Jumping jobs nets you 15-20% immediately. If you do it a few times you tend to make way more than someone who stays at the same company.

What if the democrats do this and Palin actually wins the general election? Obama kind of sucks, I wish someone good would challenge him. He has proven himself to be a liar and a spineless coward and to continue many of Bush's existing policies. The only difference between him and Bush seems to be that Bush was an idiot so he had an excuse for his behavior, Obama is not so basically he is just evil!!!

Also he has proven that he ignores what the people want as well so of course they are pissed off. He gave wall street a huge bailout, he rammed his healthcare plan through as well, instead of focusing on jobs for normal americans. I mean come on, how much are people going to take?

Still Palin would be a disaster. And if the democrats vote her as his challenger and he continues pissing enough people off so she wins the election, it will be a disaster. I think Palin is the one politician who is worst than George Bush. I'd vote Ron Paul for president, but some of his policies I don't agree with, like eliminating the FDA.... It may do a shitty job, but it is better than nothing..... But Ron Paul does seem to make sense and have integrity in voting for what he believes. He can be trusted (at least now) to vote in line with his ideals and to not compromise them at all, even if it means he is the only Republican to vote for/against some piece of legislation....

I'm sorry I meant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPython. Basically the the python interpreter/compiler is implemented in C. So basically while working on the python implementation, there are curly braces due to the C. I don't mean some amalgamation. I mean perhaps he is referring to Guido's rules for contributing to CPython in which case the contributions would be in C.....

If you are referring to the C implementation of Python you might want to clarify that. Most people seem to think you are referring to the Python language which doesn't have curly braces.

I am assuming you are talking about C Python language implementation.

Maybe he is referring to the C implementation of Python which would be implemented in C and thus have curly braces....

first off, this piss poor service that was just advertised. Two minutes to reconnect?? Sounds like it isn't ready for prime time...

Next, look at the per use charges. I'd rather have a slower connection with much hire quotas (or no quota) than a super fast connection with a tiny quota. Good luck to anyone who wants to watch videos.

As it is cell service is a huge rip off, and LTE is even more of a rip off than 3G. But what do you expect from providers who charge a fortune for delivering simple text messages and the rate hasn't gone down as their networks are upgraded...In fact ATT's rate went up (they used to be free to receive, but after the Cingular merger the double charging started....).

You can't really change anything. Someday you will die. The whole bible had some quote about the living being conscious that they will die and that is true. But we all gotta die sometime. And in the grand scheme of things a couple years doesn't make a difference. Whether it is a car accident tomorrow, lightning strike or something else, or old age in 50 or 60 years.....And anyway it could also be a motorcycle accident :P I had one of those already, probably it is most likely that the bike will be the death of me :-P Oh well. Look at what happens when you go crazy fearing death like those cowards who give up all their rights due to the remote possibility of terrorism. I'm not saying that the government doesn't need to shape up its intelligence gathering abilities. Even now the agencies are so dysfunctional. But wiretapping the whole internet, giving secret letters that cannot be challenged, locking people in gitmo, giving invasive pat downs or dangerous ionizing radiation, it all seems a bit excessive. Plus a lot of the measures don't really make anyone safer, and are just theatre. Really the truth is that people being more aware is good enough too.

Anyway I wouldn't mind dying at 50 or 60 before dementia and all sorts of muscle/bone ailments and pain starts setting in....

You want to wiretap the whole nation but when someone just looks at the tip of the iceberg as to what you got you go all crazy....I have no doubt that the CIA is looking to assassinate some people over this. Well I say if the government wants to wiretap the whole nation they deserve what they are getting and more. I wish all the hackers/leakers/etc. well and hope they pump the governments of the world dry of information....

I"m all for whistle blowing in Scandals and in morally ambiguous situations (ie memos saying that some guy was tortured in a foreign country or memos detailing abuses in Iraq Prisons). But lately it seems like Wikileaks is just releasing documents to get some publicity. It is one thing to release leaks, but it is another just to release tons and tons of documents that are not necessarily related to wrong doing. The diplomatic cables are nothing special to me. I would assume every country has similar dialogs so it is no big deal. There's nothing really wrong about any of it for the most part. Maybe there are a couple of tidbits that would have been good to release about specific things. But the overall release just seems to give the us a huge disadvantage in diplomatic relations (since none of the other country documents were released as well). And for no good reason. Even the Iraq documents were too much. Specific Iraq documents showing war time torture offenses, theft of money, etc. would have been fine. But just releasing everything doesn't seem to have a good reason. When I think of whistle blowing I think of exposing illegal/immoral behavior, not just releasing everything for the sake of releasing it. If it was this manning guy I hope they throw the book at him. If he was whistle blowing then I think he still should have lost his job/etc. but maybe not so hard. Releasing every document just seems as a violation of his duty to keep classified information secret for no good reason. He should go to jail for a very long time.

In any case I don't think whistle blowers should be punished if they are really whistle blowing, but then again they probably should get some sort of light punishment. But for someone who is just releasing documents for the hell of it and nothing is classified throw the book at them. I sign a document basically saying I will keep my employer's shit confidential. If he/she is breaking the law, then I can release the stuff to the authorities and in theory I have done the right thing. In reality the authorities are often in bed with the company so I may not. But for normal stuff I wouldn't dream of releasing anything, otherwise it just violates the document I signed. Basically it is a trust thing, if you arbitrarily violate trust then you cannot be trusted with anything. You wouldn't go off airing the dirty laundry of your family usually, unless someone broke the law and even then you may still not go airing it.....

In math classes, with the exception of numerical analysis, no programming assignments. Basically just homework problems and then exams.

In computer science classes most had at least one programming assignment (a few like data structures and intro programming had many assignments). But there were some that were entirely theory based (or just had a lazy instructor...e.g. I had an operating systems class with no homework assignments.....).

Plus there's nothing like the professor asking sitting in the back of the room asking tons and tons of questions about every aspect of the paper deliberately exposing what you know and what you don't know.... But it only works with a good professor. Some can't even be bothered to read the textbook at all even though the class is not the area they are researching.... My biggest pet peeve is when I get an exam and a question is "wrong" but then on further review the answer sheet is wrong. Then the professor has to give everyone credit for that question, even though my version is right and a lot of the other ones are wrong..... That really pisses me off!! Anyway assuming the professor at least read the book, and his lectures are not full of inaccuracies/wild speculation because he is too lazy to look it up, then he has a good idea of what you should know and what you shouldn't. so while questioning you about your paper, he can question using concepts in the book and see if you can apply them. Also some stuff in papers is open to speculation, even that if you have completely no clue then your speculation will be random guesses... Whereas many times based on the way the paper went, you can do an "educated" speculation....

Well you can. You just have to have them explain the project/paper and ask questions. I think for computer science the best thing you could do is have a programming project and then an "interview" with the student. If they have no clue at all what they are talking about, then obviously they cheated. If they had someone else do it for them and then they studied the code and looked up everything until they understood it, then I would have no problem giving them an A because they learned the material which is the point of having exams...to make sure they learn the material... In that case it's not much different from slapping together the various algorithms from the text book along with examples from the language documentation for system calls into a coherent program.

Basically everything is copying. It took years to get binary search correct on its own. Most students are just parroting out algorithms from memory that they got from a book which is more or less copying anyway. Programming is really about slapping together a bunch of algorithms/library calls into a coherent program...

Also even an open book take home test is not so easy to cheat on. If you say define term x, define term y, then the answers are in the book/google/bing/etc.. If instead you come up with some problem that uses the stuff but is not so obvious, then only people who really studied will get it. Often the cheaters all get it wrong, and it becomes obvious they cheated because they all get the same exact wrong answer....