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CAPTCHA: Appellatio: Performing oral activities on an apple?
Admin
The company I work for makes water modeling software for civil engineers, and this software is used quite often by government agencies (e.g. the Federal Highway Administration). They are required to get at least two bids before they can buy our software.
So what's our solution? We own a subsidiary (with one employee who "also" works for us) which resells our software for $5 more. We offer our software for $x, the subsidiary offers it for $x + $5. This appeases the government's bureaucracy (since multiple bids were available) and we get our sales. The government is aware of this situation, but because legally they're two separate companies offering bids, they don't care.
What's funny is that (as far as I'm aware) there isn't a competing product from another company, so if there wasn't a second bid, the government simply couldn't buy anything at all with which to do their work.
Admin
[quote user="Jay Because the first rule of good programming today seems to be, "Make the solution as complicated as possible." If you can build a very complicated solution and make it work, this proves that you are a programming genius. The fact that it will waste system resources, that no one will be able to maintain it because they can't figure it out, etc, these are the kind of carping criticisms made by lesser mortals who could not have assembled this complicated structure that you have built.[/quote]
I always seem to be the next programmer who has to maintain that dreck after the original guy left... In my years, I've rewritten an awful lot of code to be more readable, maintainable and functional.
I could have assembled your complicated structure, I just choose not to--because then I'll be asked to maintain it. I get bored working on the same code all the time, so I prefer to write it and document it so that any idiot programmer can maintain it.
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You're assuming this is the case. My observation is that the non-filler is often a student or other part-timer who is finally getting the full-time position that they deserve. Granted it's not universally true, but I'd guess that they most places are not going to blow off interviewing 3 or 4 other qualified people to keep an unqualified employee. That is unless the staff in the company are incompetent in which case I'd not want to work there anyways.
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Exactly - I can't count how many Java applets I've replaced with a handful of lines of whatever scripting language. The happiest day is when I safely uninstall Java on the machine and realize that the world is now a slightly better place. I detest Java.
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I'm in charge of IT at my company now, but I used to work on a programming team. I parted from that team on bad terms with the my former manager (he fired me, a story for another time). He e-mailed me three months ago asking whether a particular 4GB kit of RAM (OCZ Fatal1ty) would be appropriate for three of his development machines.
I responded that because our software did not even compile in 64-bit, and we weren't currently running 64-bit OSes on two of the machines, it would not be useful to get extra RAM, and that getting our software actually compiling in 64-bit (a task that, three months later, is not even close to completion) is a higher priority than buying more RAM.
The response I got was perhaps the rudest e-mail I've ever received, and I'll reproduce it here in its brief entirety:
I'm not sure why he put the phrase "my teams money" in quotes, because I never mentioned its price at all (perhaps he already knew the RAM was more expensive than necessary?). In any case, what I think is funny is that he says "tell me if they're appropriate" and "I don't want your opinion" back-to-back. Isn't whether the RAM is useful integral to whether the RAM is appropriate for the machines?
This particular manager has a habit of being extremely rude unless his subordinates (or people he views as subordinates) do exactly as he wishes, even if what he wants is useless or even counterproductive.
Oh, ironically, he bought the RAM anyway, and it doesn't even work in one of the machines (bluescreens galore). As a result, my opinion carries more weight right now than it used to...
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should have studied more...it's mi piaciano le tue tette.
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I fully agree. But, if this comment had wound up on the first page then about three of the following pages of comments would be angry flames from non-serious coders who think that they're more than that.
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And when the only tool you have is C++, every problem begins to resemble a thumb.
Let the language flame wars begin!
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Surveys show that XML is one of the most-requested IT job skills. If you interview an idiot who has read those surveys, he's going to give you a bullshit answer that involves XML. He's hoping that you're also an idiot and that you're interviewing from a checklist that has "XML" on it.
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Unfortunately, the PriorityQueue class has a few problems ...
You can only use very simple sort criteria - in particular, it cannot depend on the element being inserted. I've had cases where bounded priority queues were required (memory constraints - actually C++, but the principle is the same) where the discard criteria was "lowest priority, oldest, but if there are multiple of the lowest priority, choose the oldest of the same category as the element being added (if there is one). This can only be done with a custom priority queue, and it's quite tricky to not get O(n^2) performance ...
The java.util.PriorityQueue class does not guarantee the order of iteration - which is normal with a heap-based implementation. This means that removing things from the queue (without popping them from the head) is extremely difficult (and definitely expensive) - the use case I'm thinking of is a job queue, where jobs can be cancelled. For this reason I usually forgoe PriorityQueue, and instead just use a SortedSet - I can maintain the same invariants as the PriorityQueue, and have the flexibility I need.
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My dad worked for a government office that was like that. It made things interesting when the front door lock broke. They were apparently supposed to advertise that the lock was broken to the world and then take enough time to collect three bids before actually fixing the thing.
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Usually theres a process for sole-source purchasing. Usually, this process is a giant pain in the ass that involves extensively justifying why Vendor A the one and only source where you could buy that, and at my particular institution, then having some high-school education secretary calling you back and telling you that "she typed it into google and it looks like there are lots of vendors"...
It's generally easier to arrange the bid to have the outcome you want.
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If you said that to me in a job interview ...
I'd hire you on the spot.
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Is there NO ONE with a computer science degree anymore?
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If you were in IT your job was to answer "yes that would work" or "no that wouldn't work." Your opinion of another deparment's priorities really have no merit or bearing.
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I'll back that observation. It's fantastically frustrating to have to go through the whole interview process when you just want to hire the part timer who's been doing the job for the last 3-4 years on full time.
It was always possible you'd get someone else who was qualified, but it was pretty unlikely given the poor salaries. Worse, HR pre-screened resumes, and you had to interview anyone whose resume you were handed. Didn't get the resume for the person you wanted to hire, probably because HR doesn't understand what all those funny technical terms on there mean? They'll happily send you every resume they received, so you can interview every one of them!
The best HR moment from that job was the suggestion that a temp filling a role to be made permanent should actually be excluded from being eligable because she had an "unfair advantage".
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"How do you specify the priority?"
Question number two is:
"What are the characteristics of the producers and consumers?"
Blathering about libraries, O(n log n), and the like is a surefire way to prove that you are, essentially, one giant balsawood totem-pole in the real programming world.
Incidentally (ie nothing to do with newfweiler), and I'm only halfway through the comments, the correct English word is "resume." Insisting on "résumé" merely marks you out as an anally retentive twit, much as if you were to insist on writing, say, "bungalow" in the original Bengali -- but distinctly less impressive.
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I remember checking the ad for the filled interviews when I was in line to be hired full time. If someone put the ad next to my resume they would notice a surprising pattern.
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I'd recommend the following list of questions to submit to your local naked New Guinean with a penis gourd and a flint knife:
(1) "Complete the following sequence: TRUE, FALSE, ..." (2) What comes between collecting underpants and profit? (3) How would you use a hammer factory factory factory? (4) Do you have an amusing story about red hats and blue hats?
Of course, this list has nothing to do with the questions you'd ask at the interview. I maintain, however, that it would result in a more entertaining interview experience.
Admin
Language flame wars tend to revolve around a toxic combination of ignorance and insecurity. Neither generally applies to C++ programmers (and I'm self-selecting the group as people who actually program in C++ rather than hardware engineers who've been forced into the language. Which is reasonable, because these days every other variety of incompetent is writing the same thing in Java*).
I'd rather be programming in C++. At the moment, I'm testing something (hideously) written in C, and using Perl and Python to generate and parse the test scripts (respectively). Any tool that comes along is fine by me, two left and gangrenous thumbs or not. Find yourself a real C++ programmer, and I think you'll get the same attitude.
Rather than a thumb, btw, this particular problem appears to resemble:
template < class T, class Container = vector<T>, class Compare = less<typename Container::value_type> > class priority_queue;But see caveats above about defining priority, consumers and producers. You'd have to wrap this (simple) library call in an adapter for the latter two, but the first really only needs a decent definition of Compare.
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And you say it's the American government that sounds retarded?
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Objection your honor: rhetorical.
Sustained.
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Ok, it's time for me to ask this question because it has been bugging me for the longest time...
What. The. F*ck. does that mean?
Experience in XML? It's tags, people! Tags! As in <tag></tag>. What kind of "experience" are we talking about here? Knowing where to find the angle bracket on a keyboard?
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Nah, when you've got C++, everything starts to look like your foot.
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My guess is that the dev manager was giving out answers to candidates since the beginning.
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Not only that, but if everyone was responding XML, perhaps the question should have been revised to be how to implement the queue WITHOUT using XML.
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Shorthand for a list of XML related technologies:
XHTML, XML DOM, XSL (XSLT, XSL-FO, XPath), XQuery, DTD, XSD, XLink, XPointer, XForms, SOAP, WSDL, RDF, RSS, WAP, SMIL, SVG, etc.
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rolls eyes
Under what pretense is every job in this country supposed to pay a "living" wage? First of all, like "fair", it's a loaded if not meaningless term. Second, most idiots that use it tend to mean that a living wage should be able to pay all living expenses for the worker. That's a dangerous assumption. What about the 2nd income earner who only wants to help the family, but whose family is otherwise fine? What about the kid who just needs some side income to buy a car and get a cell phone?
And most importantly, what about the work that isn't worth paying a "living" wage for? Oh yeah, those jobs would be wiped out. Thanks.
I thought this country was supposed to be free and welcoming of immigrants. So what if a non-citizen has a job? What are you, xenophobic? Do you propose that every employer in this country first prove that they tried hiring a citizen before ever hiring a non-citizen? Under what authority?
Whose job is it anyways? It's the employers; and they can damn well do with it as they please.
Sorry if that rant wasn't "fair", whatever the hell that means.
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Thanks. Believe it or not, I really was not being disingenuous when I asked! (But, still. I feel that saying "XML technologies" if that is what is meant would be more correct.)
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Why the hell is anyone hiring a developer who doesn't know what tools exist for debugging? Why the hell would a company pay for the tedium of having a dev sit there for hours on end, adding print statements to his code, when a couple minutes in one of hundreds of tools could find a missing curly brace in seconds? Why in the hell is the person without the knowledge of these tools allowed to mentor junior developers?
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The pretense is that we don't want people starving; we can either mandate a minimum wage that you can survive on or implement the dole (ala germany) and remove minimum wage.
To address your immigrant thing, a lot of companies don't like to pay the prevailing wage and prefer indentured servants that are stuck with limited bargaining power and a lower wage. It's not xenophobic to object to an abuse of the rules/law surrounding temporary visas.
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And what of it? Government is inherently dishonest, why should an interviewing process for a school be any different?
I keep thinking that some day everyone will wake up and start rejecting government forced solutions to everything. But no, inherent greed and the thought of "getting something for nothing" will mean lazy people always look for a government solution. And the allure of power will mean evil people will always look to control others.
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That is exactly the attitude that most Corporate CEOs have about their companies. Companies always have enough money for them to make [bm]illions in salaries, and for them to give each up interest free loans, and bonuses. Then of course, lets not forget extravegant travel. First class is already bad enough, but then we have private jets. And what about vacations in exotic locales paid for by the company under the guise of calling it a sales meeting, retreat, or what not. Funny, how these need to be frugal with money only comes out when you start discussing the people in the corporation that actually work.
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Badly.
Alternatively, you could just read the Bible again (the Old Testament, presumably), and realise what a prat you are.
I'd suggest Ecclesiastes I, although it's always worth giving the Psalms a reappraisal. If you're feeling naughty (and imagining Sarah Palin in a slightly soiled blue dress), there's always the Song of Solomon.
Enjoy!
Admin
Seconded with a side of "...and furthermore!"
The idea that every single adult should be able to sell enough of their labor to support themselves and a family is, from both a historical and a sustainability perspective, a farce.
From a sustainability perspective, if every worker can earn enough to support a family, multi-income families will get maybe 1.75 times what they need. That extra .75 translates directly into greater resource use. Paying everyone in the USA a living wage would mean more global warming, more starvation in the 3rd world, more wasteful spending, and more consumerism.
Historically it took the labor of more than two people to sustain a household. Parents or kids were needed to maintain stability. Kids started contributing young, and multi-generation households were the norm. This provided not just economic stability but major social benefits.
The real kicker, though, is found in the annals modern medical research. A growing body of evidence shows that humans, social creatures that we are, are less happy, and less healty, when we live alone or in very small social groups. People living alone are more depressed, more likely to suffer health issues, less happy, and more likely to die early, than their cohabitating and more social peers. This brings into stark relief the true cost of so-called "living wages"... far from living, they enable lifestyles which science shows correlate directly with early mortality and reduced happiness in life. The so-called living wage kills, kills in large numbers, by alowing people to live self-destructively solo lifestyles.
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So, you have the same goal as everyone else: "we don't want people starving".
Your proposed solutions:
Both your proposals make you sound like a lover of The State. Ever consider any alternatives? So basically your only answer is to use governmental force to either disrupt freedom of contract or redistribute wealth. Neither sound particularly tasty to me kind sir. Perhaps you'd prefer taking a time machine to 1970 to Hungary, Poland, or to their motherland, the USSR? What fun you'd have as a partisan!
Your other point: "companies don't like to pay the prevailing wage". Last I checked, no company wants to pay more than it has to. Same goes for employees, they don't want to work for less than they have to. Somewhere in the middle is where a rate is set and a job is filled. That's how it works in a free country. Voluntarily. No government force needed. No force or fraud used by either party.
"It's not xenophobic to object to an abuse of the rules/law surrounding temporary visas." No, it's not xenophobic. It's also not too bright to expect to make it rich when you have no leverage. When you come to America with a Visa that stipulates work status, then you have little leverage over your employer. So? That's the game.
"indentured servants that are stuck with limited bargaining power" Once again, those immigrants know they will come here with less leverage than their American counterparts. That's what they signed up for. If they didn't know how things would work out, I don't blame it on the employers. I feel bad for the immigrants in those situations, but they should've done their due diligence.
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Aside from your diatribe about wealth envy, do you have a point? You and Jesse Jackson would make great friends.
Last I checked, people making more money than you, regardless of how much more, are not inherently evil.
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What... the.... f*ck??
This post is the real WTF
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Your satire would make Jonathan Swift proud.
I bow to you sir.
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Were the government not so wrapped around large corporations, and vice versa, perhaps this wouldn't be as much of a problem as it is. The answer is not to bail out companies, and maybe when this financial debacle is over, investors will remain leary of golden parachutes and disproportionate salaries.
Nah... won't happen. You people voted in the idiot Republicans and Democrats that caused all this.
Also, it's kind of arrogant and ignorant to suggests that CEOs don't work. Most of them got where they are by working 60-80 hour weeks.
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If you pay everybody a living wage, the cost of living will just rise. Then you'd have to pay everybody more so they could have a living wage!
Do a little research on an obscure subject (to most Americans and certainly our government) known as "price theory" or just "prices", and maybe it'll make it a little more clear that making sure everyone has a living wage is an exercise in futility that works to the overall detriment of society.
(Captcha: sino -- prefix meaning Chinese)
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Hmm... are you referring to the automaker CEO private jet "controversy" recently manufactured?
Let's think about this... a CEO doesn't fly alone. He flies with a staff of 10+ people.
These hearings were short notice. Last time I bought an airline ticket on short notice I paid about $650 for coach. When I was able to buy the same ticket on a month's notice it cost about $230. So let's say $6,500 to fly the CEO and his staff to DC.
What does it cost to fly a private jet? I don't know exactly. I don't own a jet. However, I can tell you that it isn't going to be that much. It's less than an hour of flying time at maybe $4000 an hour wet with pilot. So, figure round trip at $8000, vs $6500 for coach... we're having a national debate over $1500????
Oh, but it doesn't end there. It takes at least 3 hours to fly anywhere by commercial airline and much of that is spent in public areas where business discussions are not possible, so we have 30 hours of very high paid senior staff sitting on their thumbs and listening to ipods vs 10 hours of them actually working in a private conference area. That's a 40 hour difference, or maybe $5000 in lost wages. In fact you can bet the delta is higher because high profile people flying on airlines need more security and those security people need tickets too.
So not only is the whole "controversy" silly on its face, but the alternative, using standard airlines, would likely cost GM or equivalent over $3500 MORE than using a private jet.
THINK -- it's not just an IBM slogan
Admin
As someone who works in government education, and who has been involved in the interviewing process, I can say this: sometimes the 'filler' is such a standout improvement over the incumbent that they get the job. There is a reason we do it this way.