Instead of writing a new language because programmers are lazy, wouldn't it be easier to just hire good ones to begin with?? Or to offer a class that teaches them to type???

As a user of many different languages over the last 3 decades, I have always preferred the ones that require me to think about data types. In those that didn't force types, I found that things went a lot smoother if I used them anyway, or activated a switch that did require it.

In my experience, if I didn't understand what data type I needed, even if it's just 'Object', I didn't understand what I was doing anyway.

Think before coding, it saves a lot of time later because you don't have to rewrite as much shit.

... isn't run by consensus. I'm sure most documents back in the time of Galileo also stated the earth as the center of the universe.

Yawn ... let me know when someone comes up with a theory that actually predicts something with accuracy better than psychics can. (i.e. stop making claims so nebulous they are always right no matter what happens.)

Saying they were bribed is one way to look at it. Of course, the fact that these politicians could already have had pro-sales tax stances, and as such attracted more funds so they could get elected, is another way.

Otherwise, it's just free speech. NRA, Green Peace, Sierra Club, and every other lobby gives more to politicians who help their causes, they would be stupid to give money to people who oppose it. Why try to change someone's idea when you can just help someone who agrees to get elected. Why is it the 'other side' only points out the spending of people they disagree with, and not their own???

Correlation != Causation.

That is not bribery. Find an email where a senator said he will change his vote *IF* he gets more funds, and you have bribery.

There are many opposing lobbies that also spent money on getting their politicians elected. They only people complaining about how things turned out are those who disagree with the outcome. I support 100% coming up with a method to tax internet sales, it's fair and replaces an existing source of revenue. If it's not replaced, then income or property taxes will be going up. You are going to pay it one way or the other.

If you don't support the method (i.e. having 'small' companies have to collect and pay it out), then come up with a better solution and contact your political representatives instead of pouting.

Or .. here is a novel idea ... try to convince your representatives that they don't need to be spending as much money so they don't need to tax as much. Cut back on social services, police, fire, or education so that the tax isn't even needed.

It's not a 'big money in politics' issue, it's a spending/revenue issue that no one has found a good solution for yet. Put your energies towards that end instead of whining.

.. they didn't promise the same access!

Software design is easy. Creating an efficient and effective process is hard, no matter what type of design it is. You can teach some of that by helping to identify the components necessary, or creating rules about how specific types of components will be handled.

But it still takes a person who is creative to put the components together in the most effective or efficient manner. (Yes .. those are sometimes mutually exclusive). Too many rules stifles creativity, too few rules allows for chaotic systems that can't interface with each other and a lack of consistency. Creative people can find the middle ground and introduce order without having too much rigidity.

Why can't it be just someone who actually knows what the fuck they are doing and understands the system. A bad engineer, UI, or user will always design a bad system except for that one time they get lucky.

What a load of BS. Farmers are free to plant any thing they want, they don't have to buy GMO foods. There are plenty of sources for non-GMO material, and the organic nut-jobs are free to buy and plant them. I don't care if you don't want to buy them, that's your choice. I resent a small minority of people (i.e. anti-GMO) trying to remove my choice because they have huge egos and think they are the only ones 'that know what's best.

I guess you are also against the big auto companies since the little guy can't really make and sell cars any more. It's people like you that would have fought against the buggy whip since anyone could make a buggy.

Stay in your commune where everything is bright and shiny and nothing changes. I want to live in a world driven by competition where things improve. I'd rather live in the world today with all of it's problems than the 1800s when everything was organic and people died in their 40s on a regular basis.

That's an interesting opinion, because my very-educated daughter who has gone to college for several years and studied bio-engineering says it's mostly ignorant and uneducated people who believe GMO foods are harmful. She says they listen to people who claim to be educated spout half-truths about the GMO process, and then don't have any basis to determine where or not to be concerned. Since the people making the claims are so scared, those that are ignorant and uneducated tend to believe them rather than those with reasoned arguments that aren't scared.

Now, I'm not a genetics expert, but I do have some science background. She went through the arguments against GMO point by point and was able to persuade me it was all 'crying wolf' syndrome.

But what do I know, I program computers for a living and don't really have the science background to determine if GMO foods are dangerous or not.

Unlike so many fear-mongers who just spout whatever they heard on Current TV without understanding most of it.

Sure, we can stop taxing everything. As soon as a bunch of people decide that we shouldn't be giving food and money to people who don't work or are disabled, provide fire and police protection, build highways, and a bunch of other shit that people keep asking the government to provide.

CEOs have to pay for their company cars if they use them for personal use. It's not unusually for people that own a business to have the business pay their bills, so why shouldn't that payment be taxed?? Obamacare has decided to tax overly generous health care plans.

If a benefit becomes a significant source of savings for employees, such that salary could be reduced because the benefit makes it worthwhile, why shouldn't it be taxed?? When the government raised income taxes, companies switched to options and benefits to compensate high-salary employees because it became cheaper.

Google providing food to it's employees is a method to retain workers without having to pay them more, and may encourage employees to hang around the office and work more. So Google gets the benefit of buying food, which they don't have to pay unemployment tax or medicare tax or medicaid taxes on and use that as 'payment' to work there instead of shelling out bigger paychecks.

There is a significant difference between providing a lunch every month of sandwiches, and providing free food every day. While I don't completely agree with taxing this as income on a personal level, it is consistent with existing taxes.

But, like the Occupy Anything hypocrites, feel scream out to tax everyone but me. Or feel free to scream out that taxes need to be cut without offering to reduce spending on social programs.

And, since I pay to go to college, it's none of their business. If someone wants to pay thousands of dollars and fail a course because they don't read the course material, that's their right. It's none of the professor's business really. I never took any notes in college or highlighted anything, and did just fine. Probably could have done better. But I didn't fail anything. And I paid for every dime of it.

On the other hand, if I go to the professor and am having issues, and he suggest that he monitors my study habits to help me, and I agree, I see nothing wrong with it.

It's the professors responsibility to provide the opportunity for me to learn, since I'm paying for it. It's not his responsibility to make sure I do learn.

Using this at the high school level and sooner might make more sense, since it's tax dollars that are paying for the education.

So .. you must then advocate that people shouldn't be allowed to change the temperature of their car then, because looking at the dash is distracting? Or change the radio? Or eat? Or even look at their odometer since they have to take their eyes off the road. Or for that matter, their mirrors???

If you claim it's OK to do those things, then please tell me what exact period of time am I allowed to turn away from the highway and look at my mirror or odometer? And if so, why can't I use that same amount of time to look at a GPS?

I can glance at my GPS on a 4 lane highway while traveling in a straight line with clear lines of sight for several hundred feet and if I'm following at a safe distance, just as I can change my radio or glance at my odometer. As the highway gets busier, or starts to curve, the need to stay more focused increases since more variables are changing or can change when I glance away. But I still glance in my mirrors if I want to change lanes, so there is still a window of time that is currently acceptable to be distracted. In fact, if I'm stopped at a stop light, there is no reason whatsoever I can't glance down and check emails since nothing is even moving, as long as I don't take too long and miss the light changing.

Conditions while driving change, and what is possible in one instance may not be in another. We constantly weigh risks while driving to determine appropriate responses. Some are better at it than others, it is not possible to come up with one rule to cover all circumstances. I have gone through a red light in full view of a police officer, because it was not safe to stop. He could see that I tried since the front of my motorcycle dipped when I braked, but I continued through because the car a few feet behind me wasn't slowing down (he slammed on his brakes just after I released mine.) The police officer didn't chase me down and give me a ticket, because I used common sense.

It is possible to make sure that if someone does not use good judgement, they are held responsible for their actions. Rules like you suggest are the same ones that get kids suspended from school because they point their fingers and say 'bang'. And, in the end, do nothing because police won't bother to enforce them anyway.

Which is why Apple users are switching to Android, it's a better experience. It's why I've had one several years now, it's a better experience. I have multiple choices instead of Apple's moronic 'black or white'. I can get sliders or flip phones, different sized tablets, with or without HDMI connectors, most with SD card slots for expandability. And tons of different price points. It's got apps for what I need, like being able to remote connect to my desktop at work for support, so there is no need to buy an Apple computer or phone just for software.

My wife gave away two different iPods because she and I both agree .. iTune software sucks. She would rather use an old Creative brick MP3 player than her iPods because the music software just worked better. Now she just uses her Android phone.

I work for a company that runs RedHat clusters on Vmware. No Apple computer in sight because they are expensive and don't provide the same bang for the buck.

Apple may be leading windows, but that is mostly because Windows phones just suck. They always have, and they always will. But people will continue to want choices, which Apple has yet to figure out because it wants a stranglehold on it's product. Because it wants to make money and really doesn't give a crap about anything other than that.

If it did, it would allow me to buy any PC I wanted to and put Apple software on it. It would let manufacturers build iPhone compatible hardware, and let them put Apple software on it. But they don't. Because they want to make a bunch of money by charging more for a device by controlling the supply and artificially inflating the demand.

Apple does not play well with others, and I will never buy their products.

I run a large motorcycle group. There are motorcycles that only have a 100 mile effective range. We just did a trip from Phoenix to California and back (over 2,000 miles), and were able to plan our trip so we could stop every 60-80 miles to make sure the one person with the 120 mile range would not run out of gas.

So it's possible to do this for the water, but you can't just jump in the car and go. Unless you put a 100 gallon water tank in the trunk. Or stick to the freeways. It would also be far more difficult to take a cross country trip. Is there some type of warning when the battery only has 100 miles before it needs to be replaced?? And are all batteries going to use the same plates? Are they user replaceable?? It's one thing to create a center at existing service stations for one or two types of plates. But if you need a mechanic to do it, or every manufacturer or model decides to use a different size, it would be a mess.

I also wonder how this deals with little things like traveling in Maine in the winter with the heater on, or in Phoenix in the summer with the A/C on. Most vehicles today can dump waste heat to heat the car, and use mechanical energy off the engine to drive a compressor for cooling. This car would need to 'burn' electricity to create heat, or use it to power a compressor for cooling. I wonder how that would impact the effective miles between stops or recycling.

Nice concept ... keep looking.

I'm sure a CS freshman could also explain it. In fact, I'm sure someone who read the Java book could explain it. And if it takes you an hour to explain it, and you are a graduate, it's a good thing you didn't become a professor.

Doesn't really make any difference. Inventing a new word to describe a precise action doesn't make it necessary. Except to people trying to justify their waste of money on college or sound more intelligent than they really are. I know people who use more words than necessary to sound more important then they really are. They are usually called 'blowhards'. I'm sure there is another word that means basically the same thing but is a lot more precise, but blowhard works just as well and usually gets the point across.

... even more stupid people going to college to get degrees in things they have no talent for. I see them all the time, developers with 'degrees' who can only code if you put a spec in front of them, they are incapable of creative thought and have no real-world experience to pull from.

I went for a job interview last week, and the hiring VP said their biggest problem is finding developers who know how to program instead of just knowing how to code. Programmers who actually understand things like operations and systems. Programmers who are capable of seeing the big picture and coding at the systems level instead of at the method level.

These days that type of programmer is hard to find, because the days of becoming a computer programmer by starting as an operator or trainee are over. No one will hire anyone without a degree now. And no developer with a degree is willing to start as an operator, they all want $100k/year to pay off their debts. And of course, no one will hire a programmer with a degree as an operator because they are overqualified.

Yet some of the brightest programmers I know don't have degrees. They started at the bottom and worked up. They attended classes here and there, either at school or online, to learn what they needed to learn. They bought books and learned new tech.

But back when I started, companies were willing to hire someone simply because they were smart, creative, and had a great curiosity about how things work. People with good work ethics that worked smarter, not necessarily harder, than their peers.

And we do none of it now because we have been lied to that programming requires a degree. Bullshit. Programming is one of the easiest things in the world to do. I've seen 10 year old kids write code without ever having been to a class. Simply because their brain works a certain way. I've seen programmers learn new styles of programming over a weekend simply be reading a book. Their biggest stumbling block wasn't not going to college, they understood how to do things. But they didn't know the fancy words for everything. They just programmed and got the job done without worrying about technical mumbo-jumbo that really doesn't mean jack squat. Like how 'initialization' was change to 'instantiation'.

If all we want is code monkeys who need a complete spec before writing anything, go ahead. Keep sending them to school. Continue to let the government subsidize people who really have no business writing code because their brain just doesn't have the spatial aptitude that is required for programming. Because they thought it was just a great way to make a buck. Continuing only hiring people based on a piece of paper that only says they know how to pass tests.

Now .. I'm not saying that some truly great people have not come out of college and done great things. I know some people far smarter than me that have degrees and will always make more than me. And no matter how much college I had, I would never have been them. They had the talent already.

It wasn't college that made them successful, it was themselves. College was just a tool they chose to use because it served a purpose. They already had the ability, college was a different way of getting the information.

Starting at the bottom is not a bad way to learn. Sure, it sucks at first. But in 3 or 4 years, you get 3 or 4 years of experience and little or no college debt. Many companies will help with tuition. Granted, it cuts out a lot of companies that will only hire if you have a degree. And it can take a lot of time to find someplace that will do it. But someone that has been writing code at home or part-time for friends and family, and knows how to write a resume, should be able to find something if they truly have talent and interview well. If you don't interview well .. go to college.

But really, do you want to work for a company that is so procedure oriented that they won't look beyond the resume to what a person can do.

BTW .. I got the job. Will make a 6 figure income, with a 5 figure bonus. No pager duty. No long hours. 4 weeks of vacation to start.

They hired me because of my wide range of experience in everything. Because they saw that I could learn anything in IT given the opportunity. Over the last couple of decades, this is how I have gotten jobs, because I know a lot of stuff they don't teach in school. Like how sometimes, it's faster to run a database process in java on an app server pulling data through the network than one written natively in SQL running on a database server. And I know why.

I started as an operator many years ago. So don't tell me it can't be done. I've got many friends that have done it, and a few that have done it in the last decade.

You just have to work at it and stop expecting to get rich, just be comfortable in 10 or 15 years. You're young, it's not that bad. Become a programmer because you love it and have an innate ability.

Let those that will only be code monkeys pay their own way.