This move alone almost surely ensures that 'tweet' as a reference to Twitter will _not_ live forever. Major publications, especially the NYT, control the progression of grammar and punctuation in the English language... almost exclusively. Their influence is undeniable with a great deal of modern grammar rules being able to be traced back to a single publication and/or editor's decision. Even while major newspaper circulation is down in the 21st century, these publications are still the gatekeepers to the rules regarding grammar and punctuation.

In terms of vocabulary, they will always take a cautious approach. They will choose words, terms or phrases that they think will stand the test of time and not become ambiguous. In this case, the editor feels that 'tweet' will not be synonymous with Twitter in the future and is acting accordingly. He is right.

I thought the same thing. Clearly this author has no idea what he is talking about.

The topic of discussion at my networking group this morning was Facebook and we were not talking about how to make money with it. People were wondering about issues they had not known to even worry about until the latest big stink about privacy issues. Over the last year or two, only Fan pages and the like were discussed as they looked to leverage the network to make money. After failing to see any value in using Facebook for their business, most ignored the topic for several months until just recently. Now this morning it is brought up and people are going home to think about deleting their account, not setting up a page for their business.

This is what I was thinking myself. The self-taught programmer has already demonstrated enough passion in the field to know there is genuine interest in their work. I cannot stress how highly I value that drive as I feel anything is possible so long as the drive is there.

With people coming out of school, you are going to have to sift through quite a bit to find those few who have true passion for their work. Moreover, the grads tend to have this attitude out of school that they know what they are doing - they don't. The self-taught people tend to be confident themselves as well, but it manifests itself through production, whereas the schooled people like to talk about 'theory' much more than making those theories a reality.

What gaps do schooled programmers have that self-taught programmers don't? While a self-taught programmer might go about getting the job done differently, I can almost always count on him to get it done. Programmers coming out of school often still have a horrible worth ethic, especially when compared to their self taught peers. Granted, I have a very limited experience, so I wouldn't cast that judgment over all, but I would be curious to here what others think.

As you get older, you generally become wiser through your experiences. For most of us, we have learned to 'believe it when we see it' after a while and tend to act accordingly when met with some new technology promoting some grand advancement. That seems a very reasonable approach considering the unforgiving world we live in.

That said, fear due to uncertainty is not healthy and certainly what the TFA seems to allude to. In a way, TFA is just describing how FUD affects how technology advancements are viewed by those over 35 or so.

I picked up up on a Steam sale a couple months ago and did not get far passed the first 'big daddy' before succumbing to the horrible UI and the tedium it caused. It marked the first time I set down a game that was so well reviewed because it was intolerable from a gameplay perspective. Typically, I will suffer through most drawbacks if the story is compelling enough, but in the case of Bioshock, I was not hooked by the story before my patience was up. Initially, I chalked this up to being an old game, but that argument does not hold up because other games from that time are certainly still playable (and enjoyable for that matter). I had just finished HL2 when I picked up Bioshock too. I had bought it in hopes of being ready for Bioshock 2, but now I meet the release with complete apathy.

Keep using zend, especially if you are using the IDE and debugging features. In this case, go with what you know.

I laughed.

I don't.

In science, I completely agree. In philosophy, I believe that axioms create a foundation that without, you could not have any certain truths whatsoever. How do you resolve that conflict?

I suppose you've identified which side I belong to. Though we do agree that objective truth is a nonsense phrase, only I think it is because it is a redundant term.

Actually, Plato is among the few that did believe in sense-certainty. He believed in the idea of perfect knowledge and the Republic was mostly a discourse on forming a perfect society. That said, I believe Plato definitely would have agreed that all knowledge is objective under his definition. He made it very clear that he thought knowledge is certain and that the truth equates to knowledge. Now we can debate all day about whether this or that topic is true or false, but I am sure we can agree that the truth is axiomatic and essentially means 'not false, absolutely right.' That is about as objective as you can get in my minds eye... what's true is true and what is true constitutes reality. Having thought this out now, perhaps my inclusion of 'objective' was superfluous as it seems clear to me now that it was implied.

I don't. I believe you may be mis-representing what Socrates/Plato is saying in that line. To me, this says: "Those who seek and desire _complete_, objective truth deserve the title of Philosophers." The term 'reality' is used to represent what could be called a 'complete and truthful understanding' of the world.

Not so. For yourself, you just need to position yourself under a competent manager. To be quite honest, how important do you expect your body of work to be if you do not increase your responsibility at a company? You can only have your work seen as important if you strive to do important work. This is somewhat at odds with your desire to stay out of management, but I believe there are alternatives. Perhaps consulting for yourself may work? Often times a 'project lead' position is a non-management role with great responsibility.

We must both admit that at the end of the day, what makes people happy varies a great deal. As we pursue our different ends to happiness, the choices we make will be in accordance with our individual pursuits. What is the answer for me is unlikely to be the answer for you. The best advise that can be applied to everyone is to take charge of your own life and get what you want, do not wait for it to be given.

It is not the case. What you are reading are low to mid-level employees that are describing either: 1) problems with middle management at a larger company, or 2) complete ignorance of technical industries in smaller companies. In these cases, perception is far more important than the actual value you deliver. However, the creme does rise to the top eventually. While the people in this thread are detailing the lessons they have learned themselves, it is important to remember that the lesson itself is being learned, right? These people have now realized how the world works and can act accordingly. Once you persevere from the more plebeian positions into the management/executive level, your body of work is far more important.

This is exactly why I do not use auto-pay or electronic billing as well. Most people and especially judges, do not know the possiblities of electronic bills as evidence. We, as nerds, know that a PDF can be altered in a number of ways to say what you want it to say (fraud). Forging a paper bill that is dated, numbered, postmarked, etc... well that is not going to be challenged easily where as you PDF can be argued to be forged in Photoshop or something.