Sorry for the typos...I was in a hurry to see if I could get the first post. This would be unnecessary if /. was using Discourse as an engine.

I just found the link to Discourse on Coding Horror by accident about 20 minutes ago. Then I see it mentioned on /.

Well, Discourse should get rid of some of my favorite annoyances about forums like /.

For instance, today there were four good articles that I'd like to comment on, but by the time I get my arguments together, the people who could contribute the most to a meaning ful discussion will have moved on and been drowned out in a flood of idiocy. continuing a thread or an interest ove longer periods of time would acutally contibute to our mutual benefit.

A couple of things are missing:

Technical articles and opinions should have a level of proof and logic behind them. Incomplete arguments should be noted, and invalid arguments should be immediately identifiable. Furthermore, authors should be forced to stand on the merits of their arguments rather than some alleged claim to authority such as, "I've been a teacher at a major University for 15 years..." And they should be forced to create psudonyms that don't imply and opinion. (For instance, no one named "Alexander Hamilton" should be allowed on the forum, and certainly not to comment on the Federal Budget.)

Any other ideas?

To teach good programming, SIMPLIFY!

80% of the programmers I've associated with in the last 10 years rely on "cut and paste" operations. They look up how to do a task (on the internet) cut the code, modify the code for their environment, and think they're done. The most common languages where I see this is .Net and PHP, but there are lots of other examples.

Weinberg made a statement in one of his books that once a programming problem has been solved, it need never be solved again. (Just translated from one language implementation to another?) The idea of re-usable code and standard objects and patterns has led to code full of crap that nobody understands, yet they depend on it on a daily basis. (Some of the algorithms that Excel used for years were incorrect. For years competent programmers new that the floating point algorithms on 286, 386 and 486 math processors were not right, yet the everyday programmer would be ignorant of that fact.) The "reusable code", the "standard objects", the "libraries", the API's and almost everything else has made developers dependent on a multitude of code segments for which they have no understanding. Furthermore, the environment is so complex, that just finding the right code segment is enough to drive us crazy.

So, if you want to teach people to develop systems, teach them how to find and use the tools, but if you want to teach them to be competent programmers, go back to basics; work from the machine level up to higher-level tools.

A program is a set of instructions that work on data. Once you identify the data, it can be processed using only three methods; sequence, alternation and repetition. Teaching beginners how to transform data using these structures using logic gates and/or assembly language will build programming skills. Using decision tables, Warnier-Orr diagrams, or pseudocode to abstract the instructions from the language teaches them how to solve the problems, assembly language teaches them to implement the solution. After they can solve those problems, then they can build "objects" by writing code that contains it's own data.

After assembly I would have them advance to C or Pascal, and after they learn imperative programming languages they should go to something like LISP and Haskell.

Incidentally, sequence, alternation and repetition have thier own counterpart in Mathematical Logic, so, theoretically, it should be possible to prove the code correct (logically) and build correct code from provably correct components. And then, theoretically, it should be possible to generate provably correct programs from Hier level descriptions of the type of tasks that have to be performed on the data.

You get to decide at which point a "beginner" is no longer a beginner.

What the heck! It sn't like spying requires you to be open and honest at all times. Mybe he is over-qualified for the position.

Retype:

"You can fool all the people some of the time, you can fool some of the people all the time, and those are pretty good odds."

Dang! This would have been such a clever response if I'd typed it right the first time! 8-(

"You can fool all the people some of the time, you can some of the people all the time, and those are pretty good odds."
          Poker According to Maverick
http://www.amazon.com/Poker-According-Maverick-Bret/dp/B000BHSG62

Beyond mind maps, there are Warnier-Orr digrams. One of the bigest disappointments in software is that Varatek hasn't upgraded B-Liner so it runs well on Windows 7. For small systems design, it was great.
http://varatek.com/

As mentioned, they only have to make it work on one distribution. They can concentrate on maximizing performance for this distro, and, by making the source available, open the doors for independent game developers and other enhancements.

The distro fragmentation argument is not relevant; those looking for linux distros for work or other production are unlikely to consider a specialized platform. (How often have you seen Morphix installed as the compny-wide platform?

Nokia did a fantastic job of reinventing itself after realizing the lumber industry was no longer a viable business for them. The kind of culture that Nokia has is more likely to succeed by reinventing itself if the wireless phone industry is no longer a viable business for them. The purchase of Scandinavian companies (think Saab and Volvo) have not been good for the companies or their employees.

...if you know you couldn't fail?

I've been doing computer-related stuff for 47 years. I've rotated between hardware, software, sales, and just about anything in between. The bigest kick I get is making something work. Tech work worked for me for a long time because I was continuously getting called on to make things work. The longer I've been in the field, the more complicated the problems and, until about 6 years ago, the more I got paid to solve them.

My income has dropped 80% in the last 8 years. Part of it was due to an illness I contracted, but most of it was due to the economic situation. I have a small advantage over most techs, but the truth is that any fairly competent tech with a couple of year's experience could do 80% of what I do, and those techs are selling their services for $35/hr instead of the $110/hr I usually charged my corporate customers. It makes sense; It is usually cheaper to hire the cheaper fella and only call me in if he screws it up. That's OK with me, too, because I love being the hero. But it is getting harder and harder to make a living this way.

I'm 64 now, and I'm not ready to retire. (I spent all my money on wine, women and song, and I wasted the rest.) If my business doen't pick up by October I think I will see if can get into an Electrician's apprentice program. There is always a need for electricians, it is solid work, and lots of the low-voltage work in security, home automation, solar electric, etc. is fascinating. Plus, you don't have to re-train yourself every 4 years to keep up with your field. Cause and effect are pretty clear (most complex systems have failure built into the design) and the requirements analysis is pretty straight forward.

Another question might be, "What would you do with your life if you had so much money that you never had to work for a living again?" My hobby is robotics and I do some serious stuff. If I could make a living doing that I would probably be as happy as if I had good sense.

I would suggest reading, "The E-Myth" by Michael Gerber before making a decision. http://www.amazon.com/The-E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses/dp/0887307280/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1339362079&sr=1-1&keywords=e-myth

Even if you are not interested in having your own business, the first three chapters on figuring out how you want to live your life are very useful.

Good luck.

Actually, there is a test for that. Back in the 60's, two guys from Harvard (Greenberg and Mayer) concluded a test of what made good salespeople. The personality dynamics were "empathy" and "ego drive". A person had to be able to connect with the customer and have the drive to come out with a solution. Those of us with high empathy and ego drive did real well at things like selling encylopedias. (It amazes people how I could walk into someone's home and walk out 90 minutes later with a $1000+ order.) However, in those days, a computer salesperson needed to have less ego drive (but more than enough to stick to it) and high empathy; computer sales took over a year and sometimes two years to close. A person with really high ego drive wouldn't get rewarded often enough to keep them involved.

Interestingly enough, 1 out of every 5 people tested was suited for some kind of sales. Another interesting thing; 1 out of 4 people tested would have been better off changing to a sales job from the one they already had.

Greenberg and Mayer also addressed the methods of training. They found that the most effective way to train was using role-playing practice.

In my experience, the best sales training was provided by Xerox Learning systems and The Dale Carnegie Courses. Methods and role playing were both used over a multi-week course. (In the 10-week period I took the DCC Sales course, I made more CASH sales in 10 weeks than I had in the previous 10 years!)

Unfortunately, DCC has reduced their course to three days and some online coaching. It is not the same and it is apparently not nearly as effective. I haven't seen anything from Xerox for years. I used to do computers and accounting during the day and sell Britannica at night to make a living. Then, in the late 70's, computers got cheaper and another Britannica Salesman opened a computer store in our town. I'd like to say we got rich, but it didn't happen that way. However, it did provide many years of good, solid, rewarding work.

Many companies still hire sales people, give them a 90-day draw against commissions and then screw them on training and development. Since the sales cycle and opportunity window are sometimes much longer than 90 days, it makes better sense to have a one or two-year program in place with much coaching and feedback. I wouldn't put much faith in any single program, but the "Solutions Selling" (Bosworth, Thank you Sun Micro), "Socratic Selling" and some NLP-based course like "Beyond Selling" would probably be what I would use to train salespeople today. These are communications-based selling processes, useful in different situations.

The lack of programming ability is probably not the big barrier to the sale: It is more likely that the customer can't explain what he wants and why he needs it, and the salesperson can't PROVE that the product delivers what the customer wants. Details are so far down the selling process that the customer should have committed to buying well before that point.

OKI, now if you are dealing in the Microsoft world, you may have a completely different problem: Sharepoint, SQL Server and CRM don't play well with previous versions; "cloud" apps, especially CRM stuff has developed a 20-fold increase in database size; legacy systems that customers have been using for years no longer communicate meaningfully and will no longer print legacy reports; and the method for writing the modifications has changed drastically in just the last 5 years. The Microsoft world may be collapsing under its own weight. In this case, you had better be prepared to teach your salespeople very good requirements analysis processes and maybe some programming. Pick you languages, get a course in-house, and work on the actual solutions you need to solve.

Good luck

Funny how people cherry-pick their stats, isn't it? I live in Texas. And by the FBI stats, Texas is not even close to the most violent state in the Union. The "Peace index" is meaningless, and the other chart is raw numbers, so of course we have a higher number than less-populous areas. And the statistical abstract for the United States does break down the stats by prior years' per capita rates, and shows that there was an immediate drop in certain areas of violence when the concealed carry laws were enacted in Florida and Texas.

Full studies show a high correlation of violence related to drugs and alcohol. Prohibition isn't working and harsh consequences make the relative cost of doing violence lower than just getting caught.

I would also like to see a cross cultural study: It is amazing to me that gun violence in Canada is so much less than the USA.

The two countries with the highest non-war-related per-capita death-by-violence over the last 20 years are Brazil and Mexico, which are also two of the countries with the harshest gun laws.

In the UK, violence went up after the ban on guns and personal weapons (I have friends who had their collectible swords confiscated), but it was more people being bludgeoned and stabbed instead of shot.

Lots of factors need to be considered before a meaningful correlation can be drawn implying cause-and-effect for violence. Cherry-picking statistics are false logic.

However, for those of you who are entertained by false logic, here's something I received in my e-mail a few days ago:
Scary Doctor Facts
This is really something to think about:
A. The number of physicians in the US is 700,000
B. Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year is 120,000
C. Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171 (US Dept of Health & Human
Services).
Then think about this:
A. The number of gun owners in the US is 80,000,000. (That's right, 80 MILLION! And statistics show that there are two guns in the USA for every man, woman and child.)
B. The number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) is 1,500.
C. The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is .0000188.
Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than
gun owners.
FACT: NOT EVERYONE HAS A GUN, BUT ALMOST EVERYONE HAS AT LEAST ONE DOCTOR.
Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors
before this gets out of hand.
As a public health measure I have withheld the statistics on lawyers for
fear that the shock could cause people to seek medical attention.

Well, all those taxes paying for "free" education kind of torpedo the notion of free, don't they? If you were forced to pay for your neighbor's kid's education at gunpoint, would you still think it was free? What is your fair share for educating your neighbors dropouts?

And I have seen a lot of Europeans with "free" degrees employed in America or in American-owned companies because they can actually make good salaries.

...mostly printers from Epson and Canon. Of course, the use high quality inks and paper.

For large pictures, almost all the photographers I know use an Epson 7700 series printer with Utrachrome inks. for smaller prints they seem to be split between the Epson and Canon printers. They use the higher-quality inks and paper.

Archival color photography has always been a problem. Ectacolor and Kodacolor degrade significant;y in only 20 years, quicker if exposed to heat or sunlight. Agfa and Fuji made the best commercial films and print for long-term dependency. Carbon prints were the absolute best, but difficult to master. (They were expected to degrade less than .01% in 200 years.)

Digital storage and digital printing is going to cause problems in the future. I know companies that used COLD to store their paperwork that are having problems recovering data from degraded media. I also know companies that are trying to get data off disks from CP/M drives. compatibility may be one of the next issues. I hope that Gold Archival discs live up to their reputation.