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ilbe

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MonolithFirst 11 years ago

there's a definitive architectural skill set that CAN BE LEARNED

Would you care to share what that skill set is, for the sake of improvement of a mid-level engineer like myself?

Wow, very timely, yesterday I needed to brush up on C and was wondering how I would go about it. Thanks. Very minor note: the link to "Learn C the Hard Way" on the faq page links back to the faq page.

What's most troublesome is statements like this, typical of the guardian:

"A new economic paradigm – the collaborative commons – has leaped onto the world stage as a powerful challenger to the capitalist market."

Whereas capitalism as a philosophy is about individual rights and private property, this "new collaborative economy" stinks of failed historical experiments.

These two are good points:

1. "There are just two grades of commodities in the world: the best -- and the others."

2. "...whether he can talk and write effectively... If you write and speak neatly and accurately, it is because your thinking is orderly; if your expression is forceful, the thought back of it must be forceful. But if you blunder for words, punctuate incorrectly, spell incorrectly, and express yourself clumsily, I'm sure to believe you mind is cluttered and ill-disciplined."

I'm with you because I had the same experience with a judge while lawyerless. I showed him a manufacturer tech spec on my car to make the point that based on its 0-60 acceleration, it was physically impossible that I was going 67 mph by the time I reached the intersection where I was clocked from where I started accelerating. His response upon seeing the specs was, "What are you, trying to sell me on a car?! This officer (witness) has been with the department 15 years. Guilty."

"If you find your testers splitting up functions to support the testing process, you’re destroying your system architecture and code comprehension along with it. Test at a coarser level of granularity."

What? Splitting up large functions into smaller, well-named units destroys code comprehension?

the hopes of functional programming is that...it will be easier to exploit a lot of concurrency

Is this not exactly what is happening today?

Because computing is now supposed to cure all the ills of the world and more... The current boom in computing is an immediate reflection of absolutely unrealistic hopes.

Are we not repeating history exactly? E.g. medicine-quackery, chemistry-alchemy, astronomy-astrology

Regarding AI: Can you research something that is not science? I feel that the effort to use machines to try to mimic human reasoning is both foolish and dangerous.

Amen

Anyone who has read Grapes of Wrath knows that the correct statement is, "Companies would rather not pay ANY professionals high salaries..."

Call it a conflict of interest or call it the market. One way or the other, the conclusion is improve your skills, increase your value, and in the name of friendly competition, skin the company alive for as much as you can get for the skill the company demands. They are playing the same game with you.

Thanks for sharing, I also found your previous post thought-provoking and motivating. How sales-oriented is independent consulting? Do you look for new technologies to branch out into and if so, how?

Fake Name Generator 13 years ago

Curious what you find this useful for? Filling out online forms instead making stuff up off the top of your head?

I do most of my programming in Java and I'm convinced I want to learn functional programming, just to broaden my thinking. What are some considerations regarding starting with SICP book/Scheme vs. Scala vs. Closure vs. Haskell?