``By and large, people hate change.''

Technology corporations love change, though. That's why they have such big marketing budgets: to convince us that we need their latest and greatest toy and to be parted from our cash for the privilege of owning it.

``I've used Emacs since before many IT people today were born.''

I learned by accident. My first IBM-clone (Columbia 1600) shipped with a software suite that used the Emacs keyboard mappings. Later when I wound up using a Tektronix workstation, the standard editor was Emacs and I was right at home.

(Remember: We hide because we use Emacs and they use vi.)

``The best advise I can give to you is to not give into proprietary hardware just because it is shiny and new. You'll find yourself replacing everything every two years, and pouring money into the coughers (sic) of corporations. You'll become more dependent on the grace of other companies, and at the mercy of others.

All I can say is: Spot F**kin' On. If it isn't broken why am I constantly being reminded that I need to replace it. Are these hipsters who always have the latest technological doodad going to be able to retire after having spent their entire working lives shelling out their paycheck for the next cool toy that Corporate Marketing has convinced them they need?

Hell... I thought it was now the definition of "lame" to be standing outside the Windows or Apple store waiting to be milked for the newest shiny and over-priced toy. Now we have another generation worried that they'll be left behind or somehow unemployable if they aren't seen with the newest smart phone.

Good grief... I certainly hope that Coverity's analyzer strips out comments before it starts evaluating code. Even the dimmest pointy-haired manager would see right through that scam.

``What is this third kind of software that is neither open source nor proprietary which is bringing down the average industry standard for software quality?''

Internally-written software that is not being released for ``external'' consumption, perhaps? There's likely far more of that in use than what is being sold for profit or being given away.

Patrol -> Nagios

Control-M -> ????

before the licensing costs go through the roof.

(I predict that they'll be laying off software developers once Bain starts "improving" the business.)

... the class was never taught because no one ever signed up for it. The interest was zero.

Probably because: a) students' friends who'd already graduated reported back that their employers didn't give a damn about doing much testing and b) it definitely isn't something that pulls down the big bucks.

It seems to me that testing is barely being done if at all. I think that any one who takes a look at the state of the SW market sees that; especially web applications (though I may be finding more fault in their nearly complete lack of what was once called "human factors" testing and that really needs to be done in the design phase, IMHO). I used to work with a couple of guys who were software testers for a while. It was very, very under-appreciated. You end up being the pain-in-the-ass who caused either the delivery date to slip or the Death March needed to fix the problems. ("Gee! Where do I sign up?") Both of those problems could be solved by putting the Marketing people in their place; product shipping dates aren't set until all the testing has been done. First to market with a piece of crap doesn't do the company any good.

``However, if you run existing code or use an "off the shelf" open source application, chances are, it will be tested and developed on MySQL/MariaDB and not on Postgres.''

That was my experience back when I was looking for web site software a few years ago. It's not so much that the "off the shelf" application hasn't been tested against PostgreSQL but it's almost certain that the developers only considered MySQL, taken advantage of non-standard SQL statements that are available in MySQL, and locked users into using only that database. I downloaded untold numbers of web site packages and found that most of them had used things like MySQL's "REPLACE" statement which meant they wouldn't be useful in my existing PostgreSQL environment without significant reworking. Standards, shmandards.

Ideally, it'd be nice if more developers would write their application to use some of the database abstraction layers that are out there (PEAR, ADOdb, etc.). At least then users would be able to merely use the database they may already have installed.

Segways will never be ubiquitous because they provide no protection from the weather and you can't really carry anything when riding one (other than what will fit in your backpack). Until we all live in domed cities cars will still be more useful than Segways for getting around. I'm still wondering how they'll be able to transport more than one person at a time. A family outing to, well, anywhere isn't going to work with Segways.

The article is right on about the dorkiness factor of Google Glass. I've gotta wonder about the genius at Google that OKed the development of Glass without a better understanding as to whether people will even want to be broadcasting everything they're seeing onto the Web. And looking like a Borg while doing it.

My dad used to "write" programs for those computers. He took me to work one day and I was amazed that the tangle of wires was somehow useful. For a long time I had one of the two-pronged plugs/jumpers that were used on those boards. (Lost in the sands of time now.)

The sequestration cuts were intended to be across-the-board cuts; not targeted as the Republicans are now wanting. The people bitching and complaining about the cuts that the FAA don't seem to want to own up the the fact that they agreed to these across-the-board cuts so they could go back home and crow about how tough they were on reducing the deficit but now want us to forget about all that and place all the blame on the Executive branch for implementing the sequestration as it was intended. Weasels, all of 'em.

(I'm surprised that the auto-spell checker is not flagging "sequestration" as incorrectly spelled.)

``our organization of +50,000k users was affected''

So who at your company gets dinged when 50,000 employees are sitting on the hands while Google fixes their problem? Surely some monetary value can be assigned to a loss of productivity this widespread. Or does management take advantage of Google's outage by calling impromptu staff meetings?

... one could argue that Steve Forbes has less insight into the value of a dollar than the kid flipping burgers at Mickey D's. When I even listen to Forbes, I take everything he says with a huge grain of salt because whatever stand he takes on an issue or policy is based, primarily, on it making him more money. Once he figures out how to exploit bitcoin to his advantage, he'll be singing a different tune.

What a great idea! Piss off kids who will be voting in a few years. Let's see how well Rogers does with the 18 year old vote in the next election.

``No getting slowed down having to satisfy rigid rules imposed at compile time, just pure productivity.

Which is great if the quality of what is being produced is no longer a concern. We encounter too many examples of that each day. To paraphrase from an old joke: ``This stuff is just awful but just look at how much of it we're making.''