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Comment Where Do These Stats Come From? (Score 1, Informative) 546

Nearly half of the software developers in the United States do not have a college degree. Many never even graduated from high school.

What? I pored over the article and the US BLS link in it to find the source of these statements. Aside from a pull quote that appears as an image in the article but isn't even in the article itself and is unattributed, could someone find me the source of this statistic?

Because I'm a software developer in the United States with a Masters of Science in Computer Science. All of my coworkers have at least a bachelor's degree in one field or another. And my undergrad very much so started with a sink-or-swim weed out course in Scheme and then another in Java. Yes, they were both easy if you already knew how to code but ... this article almost sounds like it's written by someone with no field experience. Granted that's a low sample set, I'd like to know where the other half of us are. Everyone keep in mind that a Computer Science degree is a relatively new thing and there very well may be elderly coders doing a great job without technically a degree in computer science.

The only way I can see the misconception spreading is that people who use Wix to drag and drop a WYSIWYG site (for you older readers that's like FrontPage meets Geocities) erroneously consider themselves "software developers".

Comment Moo (Score 1) 3

I have a subscription, but i never use it. :) Adblock rids all the ads for me, and i only really come for journals anyway.

Too bad the drive died. I know how that feels. Norton Ghost saved me once.

There are some solutions though, including placing the drive in the freezer for a couple hours and trying again. Though, a search just found this that warns against it.

On a side note, i have mod points. Should be coming to a JE near you. (Someone seems to have modded us all up recently as it is.) Everyone, please point me to your posts even if your rating isn't less than stellar.

Comment Re:Targetting the "middle" (Score 1) 2

but most are actually very carefully aimed at a majority of users

Pandering to the public seems so fickle. Popular today means it'll require changing tomorrow.

Is the constant change really helpful, or are these studies done with blinders on, looking only for short-term gain?

User Journal

Journal Journal: Rant: Big flashy UIs 2

UIs are just getting worse and worse. Things are now bigger and larger, colorized even. "We really think you want to click this" has taken precedence over usability. I feel like i need to be an idiot to use such software.

Comment Canv.as Decommissioned (Score 3, Insightful) 220

Canvas (site, not the HTML5 element) and DrawQuest were killed earlier this year. I used it briefly in its beta form and thought it was a neat idea. Any chance you could elaborate on why it was shut down? The e-mail I got was brief and vague -- were you facing copyright issues? Monetization problems? Image space issues? Care to spill your lessons learned?

Comment Moo (Score 1) 6

I wouldn't touch WD.

WD basically invented the hard drive and used to be awesome. Then they started selling garbage. After having a number of their drives fail and seeing online reports of the same, i no longer consider them an option. Same story with Epson for printers. It make me wonder why these great companies decided to destroy the one thing they had: A brand that stood for quality.

Comment Re:Send in the drones! (Score 5, Insightful) 848

1) It's not about defending ourselves from foreign invaders, so we have no business here, regardless of whether we think slightly better about the cunts in Moscow or the cunts in Kiev;

2) You're a fucking idiot if you interpret an arms reduction agreement as promise of military aid, and so was the Ukraine;

3) The US has been in full imperialism mode since the '40s. It is never a good time to invade the US;

4) The artificial creation of the Ukraine was the first problem;

5) The undemocratic overthrow of the Ukrainian government was the straw that broke the camel's back;

6) This doesn't make Russia's behaviour correct;

7) There is no correct behaviour.

That you refer to 'the Ukraine' shows that you are neither Russian nor Ukrainian and misinformed even about the name of that country.

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