you’ll want to be able to set the language for the file type. In the case of Web development, you’ll often have three languages in one file, such as PHP, HTML, and JavaScript; if you do, and you need syntax highlighting, you’ll want to make sure that the tool can handle all three at once. If this is how you organize your code, with three languages intermixed in one file, your choice of graphical tool set is irrelevant to your success. An IDE is not a substitute for good code organization and separation of concerns. Yes, it will help you untangle code. Good. Even better to not tangle it up in the first place.

Until you create an AI that can not only code other things, but intelligently and accurately alter it's own code, programming *is* too complex for automation. Code is, in a quite literal sense, crystallized and replicable thought and action.

The best you can do is write better and better frameworks that make it easier for non-experts to write trivial code, which the highest-level programmers don't want to bother with anyway: they'd rather work on something that challenges them and forces them to learn and think. If anything, the highly skilled programmer should welcome a glut of low-end programmers: they just need to switch gears to be the consultant that comes in and fixes things when the idiot college grads fuck it up, rather than the curmudgeonly asshole that gets fired for not being a "team player".

That's not saying very much: just about any methodology "works" with a small enough group of highly-like-minded and self-selecting people.

If Agile is failing despite voluminous developer output, that's where the rubber hits the road.

In real world development, you are going to have acceptance criteria written to your PMs level of understanding of the product. Most businesses don't understand product managers, they understand *project managers*, and since project managers are just bookkeepers, organizers, and communication traffic facilitators, meant to be fungible across many types of projects, it just all goes to shit.

The experts who know the system can't be bothered to write the stories, and the project manager has no fucking clue what they are typing up.

Here's the stupidest thing ever: a company that develops with Agile, yet still has Subject Matter Experts communicating through the project managers. Of course you have to have a project manager, because it isn't a single team, or even all Agile teams, and the teams need to coordinate their efforts. And of course those SME's are too busy answering everyone's questions to be bothered to write out the specs properly.

Agile is like most high school physics: it works *perfectly* in low-friction environments.

Now, the pro-Agile people are going to say you aren't doing it right, etc. etc. You people are like communists: it works if you do it right! No, it doesn't, because it doesn't take into account corruption, greed, politics, propaganda, and deliberate mis-control of information for the benefit of a few. And those things are going to exist in any large-enough group of people.

Agile will not fix your organizational problems. It only shines a spotlight on them. Usually, when you point this out, everyone will nod their heads. They will all agree it needs to change. The problem is that no one with the power to actually fix the issue is in the room.

Holy shit's it's even worse!

FTFA:

Wait... I've watched Law and Order. Isn't there a whole "fruit of the poisoned tree" thing where evidence obtained illegally is impermissable in court? Just 10 levels of fucked up there.

And yet, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Fuck that.

Rock-stars aren't toxic: they are disruptive.

What you do with the disruption they create is up to you: embrace it and elevate everyone else, or reject it, and continue with mediocrity (and maybe keep him as an ace-in-the-hole for skunkworks and one-off solutions where time is a key factor, and unleash the disruption when the time is right).

The companies that have a "stable" development pattern in which the feature development pace, bug rate, architecture, and organizational tools are "good enough" should not hire rock-star coders. They will be frustrated with everything you *aren't* doing, and all the other developers will wonder why he wants to push for more: after all, this has been good enough, right? Inertia will kill any ideas he has for improvement.

The companies that have highly-locked down roles and restricted responsibilities shouldn't hire rock-stars: you will underutilize them, and they will be frustrated with a lack of ability to "just get it done on my own".

Rock stars work well only when they are surrounded by true peers, and everyone is operating on their level, or they are in charge (at least technically) and can fill in a mentor role with not-quite-peers (and are given reduced responsibilities in other areas to compensate time-wise). This almost never happens: rock-stars are seen as too good to not be coding.

This is simply false.

I have used, in my work:

1) Bayesian probability
2) Numerical integration
3) Linear algebra
4) Graph theory
5) Combinatorics

There are all beyond high school math.

Dunning-Krueger strikes again.

As a person who enjoys a little philosophy (and can manage to pull out the humorous side of it), what do you think of Daniel Dennett?

With respect to your "philosophical thought experiment" comics, how many of your comics are based in topics/ideas you learned before the end of your formal education, how many are based on things you have encountered in your "continuing education" (whether based on life experience, or just what you are currently reading about), and how many are "novel" intuition pumps?

There seems to be an implicit assumption that people *want* the truth.

Seems to me that Google is going to have to decide whether they are first and foremost a social-engineering-through-better-technology company, or a company that sells ads. I think this would likely bring this contradiction to a head.

Sure there is an explanation, and it's even on screen.

Aragorn gives them the swords at Bree, probably prepared for the fact that hobbits probably wouldn't have swords.

The only real difference is that in the book, the fact that they were special, ancient blades allowed Merry to stab the Witchking and injure him. However, that really makes no sense, as Eowyn was able to kill him with plain old iron (and a little bit of destiny), no special Numenorean magic required.

*sigh* stripped tags make templated sentences suck.

Example:

"That hurts poor kitty. Why do you want to hurt kitty? Only mean people like [insert current bedtime story villian] would hurt an innocent little kitty. Are you a mean person like [insert current bedtime story villian]? No? If [insert current bedtime story protagonist] were here, what would they do instead?"

>>> I felt the exact same way. "Oh, okay, so no spanking, no time outs. What should I do?" And finally at the end of the article they say something about teachable moments.
>>> Ummmm...so what do I do when my 2 year old hits the cat?

Whenever people ask things like this, I think "Who are these people that can't outsmart and manipulate their 2-year-old?" The answer to "what do I do" is you manipulate the child into feeling bad when he does undesirable things, just like every other kind of punishment. The entire point of punishment is to instill empathy when it's lacking, and to do so, you must make them feel a kind of pain when they cause pain to others so they understand. If you aren't particularly clever, you manipulate via physical pain and humiliation (corporal punishment, no dinner). If you are more clever, you use *who they identify as and with* to manipulate them (BTW, this works on adults too... see identity politics).

Example:

"That hurts poor kitty. Why do you want to hurt kitty? Only mean people like would hurt an innocent little kitty. Are you a mean person like ? No? If were here, what would they do instead?"

How is this difficult?

Forget reading other's text for comprehension, you can't even read what you wrote.

>> That's standard practice for introductory/taster courses. Give the students something they can achieve fairly quickly and easily to show that they can get interesting results and pique their interest in the subject. ***It doesn't have anything to do with gender.***

Right there, starred so you can't miss it. They straight up admit it has everything to do with gender, right in the headline. Twice.