Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re:Nothing changed because I already did what I co (Score 1) 113

Yeah, but I only "saw" evidence of tampering when I was having manic episodes while unmedicated. Until you've dealt with clinical paranoia, you have no idea just how terrifying it is to think that every black SUV you see is an undercover cop, that everyone with a bluetooth headset is with CSIS/GCHQ/NSA/FBI/CIA, or to hear "voices" in the rumble of a furnace duct.

'tis scary shit, and far from realistic.

Comment Nothing changed because I already did what I could (Score 2) 113

I didn't change my behaviour because I was already doing what I could to protect myself from spammers, scammers, sniffers, man-in-the-middle attacks, and other such annoying and often illegal behaviour. Wherever encryption was available, I used it.

Being somewhat paranoid due to my periodic bi-polar "manic" periods, I already was convinced the goobernmints and corporations of the world were up to nefarious snooping and hacking. Snowden didn't "inform" me of anything; all he did was confirm what I already believed.

Comment Yes, but not for the sake of playing (Score 1) 170

Video games got me into computers because I decided I wanted to program a version of "Space Invaders" for the TRS-80 Model I, Level I.

I wrote an intro screen in BASIC, but it was too slow.

So I taught myself machine code and POKE'd it into memory, and got the intro screen working.

I never did finish writing the game, but I learned a lot about the basics of programming and how computers worked.

From that 14-year-old project, I was hooked; taking Computer Science in University became an obvious choice.

Comment Re:I hate to tell you this (Score 1) 271

Well, one thing is for sure. Sitting on your arse for three years won't teach you ANYTHING of value for your next job.

Research the market. Pick something. With three years, pick several things. Try. Learn. Do.

The world isn't going to just hand you a career on a silver platter -- you have to take responsibility for your own life and develop your own skills. You have to make decisions, and take responsibility for them.

Comment Re:I hate to tell you this (Score 1) 271

People who are confident in their own ability and who are willing to learn from their mistakes appreciate honesty.

It's only the pathetic little whining "everyone gets a trophy" kids who think it's "mean" or "cruel" to tell someone the truth.

If you want a trophy for mediocrity, go back to elementary school. This is the real world. You can fail; you WILL fail; and how you DEAL with failure is more a measure of your professionalism than your "'733T skillz."

Comment Java is just a tool like any other language (Score 4, Interesting) 382

No language is inherently good or evil in and of itself (save for PHP, which is evil incarnate.)

It is simply a tool for expressing logic. A means of structuring data.

Some are elegant for certain classes of problems, some are abused to fit problem sets they aren't suited for.

The sole benefit of Java to me is it's portability for core logic, even though I know that once you're dealing with user interfaces and heavy duty multi-threading, there are "write once, test everywhere" problems with the language.

Java isn't even predictable on my Linux box. It randomly crashes for no apparent reason while running code that has run cleanly thousands upon thousands of times in the past. Yet after years and years of successful runs of my pet project (http://msscodefactory.sourceforge.net/), I had Java 7 on Ubuntu crash a couple weeks ago during a run. The compiler itself crashes on a regular basis; several times per week.

As to why all the Java articles lately? Oracle's "Java World" conference is coming up, so it's time to beat the drums, sacrifice the sheep, and burn the entrails on the altar of the language. The high priests are out in droves preaching the gospel.

Slashdot Top Deals

Thus spake the master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

Working...