fieryeagle

Mind-blowing stuff. Imagine if he folds this into Prezi...

Market rate means nothing to employers. If they could give you 3% raise per year and get away with it, they would. The only way for non-union developers to protect their interest is to look out.

Not sure if one should favour 4 years in theory or 4 years in relevant work, for a programming position. For research, yes absolutely as it is straight carryover.

Burmese Cockney eh? This I hafta listen to at least once in my lifetime.

Finally, somebody confirms for me the way that I've always used to learn to pronounce very long words.

That'd be the day that I introduce my fist to the monitor.

How about...Raymond Chen?

Sounds like I could give this one a miss. Too many motivational fluffs out there already.

It could be a hassle to keep comments as up to the date as the code they are meant to accompany, that I totally agree but I would argue with these main 2 reasons on why I prefer to comment as much as possible and update them as often as the code: 1) I am fairly certain that the next maintainer of my code would appreciate a well-written piece of code with proper explanation for especially clever portions or just plainly horrifying practices done for a production bug fix which must go out in minutes and the poor soul responsible for that already forgot about fixing the fix :).

2) Someone may remember every lines of code that they wrote in the past 3 months or so but I would not. I tend to forget code rather quickly so my comments serve as a memento to my future self, meaning I would do well to keep my comments up to date.

Very useful article. This is nothing less to be expected from a Communist bloc nation. Public media smearing is just one facet of oppression.

If we are talking about Snowden as a beacon for freedom of speech and basic human rights, his move would seem like an unwise one. However, he is but flesh and blood like any of us so running to an oppressive state for relative safety is just fine. Survival comes before ideal.

Well, it was pretty much a big win for America after the war ended, economically with all that arms trade and diplomatically as the affirmed leader figure of Western bloc.

Hypothetically, a win for either Axis or Eastern bloc would spell disaster for capitalism. That practically guarantee that US would join in the fray, one way or another, indirectly or directly. Pearl Harbour helped alot with the decision making, as other members pointed out in this thread and the general consensus on America's participation in WW2.

I beg to differ. Operation Barbarossa was the one turning point of the USSR invasion. Stalingrad was merely the consequence IMO as Barbarossa had led to German army being both weakened and stretched too far out. They simply could not compare to the Soviet war machine's recover-ability and production.

Of course Pearl Harbour was what got the US directly involved and nuking Japan out in the end, but I hold the speculation that without Pearl Harbour, US would still declare war to either Germany or Japan anyway because of several reasons below: 1) US businesses were being harmed by the Axis, i.e. Germans attacking cargo ships meant to supply arms to Britain. Sooner or later the piled up losses would justify the entry in front of Congress.

2) The Japanese was expanding fast in Asia and they would not stop just short of US territorial waters, plus the imposed embargo had been pissing the Japanese off anyway. A clash was inevitable.

3) Letting USSR being the major player and eventual winner meant letting communism spread throughout Europe. There had to be a sizable participation from the Capitalist group in the war and the rest of the Western bloc was too tattered to muster that up.

I agree, partly with that, yet I'd add more factors onto the equation. Let's say that 2003's Iraq was evident from an economic standpoint. On the contrary, the Vietnam war did not seem to net much profits from the get go. However, when you factor in the world affairs at the time, then it started to make sense.

Interestingly, there have been multiple speculations on US's involvement in WW2:

One is the good democratic fight versus the bad facists. US were hampered by the isolationist views held by quite a number of senators at the time, hence there was no direct involvement until after Pearl Harbour attack, which resulted in an almost uniform senatorial agreement on declaration of war.

Another is that US could have kept maintaining the profit stream from arms-dealing to both sides (Germany still imported American arms prior to 1941 or so, if I'm not mistaken) but got unwillingly dragged into the war.

Yet another more cynical view is that after the huge Axis loss at USSR, US just saw the opportunity to join in and mope up what's left of the Axis since winners get to dictate the terms. The Pearl Harbour event was a surprising but timely excuse.

Do read up more on the history of both wars as 'seeing a situation' was a pretty simple-minded opinion there. It took much much more than a call for justice to move the military gears. There were always political or economic agendas hidden under any wars and that makes one reason for criticism. I don't even want to get started on other reasons.

You must mean, ones who are/were made public right?

They are compiler engineers as well.

On one hand, you have web developers. On the other hand, you have compiler engineers. The difference in communities is quite stark.

*insert reference to 'Spooks' here.

Very true, for that I wholeheartedly agree and I do admire his earnestness in pointing what many may have noticed but chosen to ignore anyway.

Read the whole thing and my opinion is now slightly more favourable yet I maintain my point of "see more, hear more". I get the author's standpoint yet it irks me that he seems to think the majority of web developers out there are overpaid for doing less than meaningful work. What about those who cursed the job day in day out but stuck with it for the paycheck while looking out? Do they question the same things? Yes, but getting paid this month is more important and no, other parts of the world don't usually get severance packages.

The article is someone's opinion and I'm merely expressing my own as well. Everything is debatable because the industry is so much different from one city to another, let alone countries. Unless this is entirely dedicated to one part of the States, otherwise it is good but flawed argument.

Well, I didn't even read through the whole article. Your comment prompted me to go back and read everything, and I failed to see where the agreement lies.

My point was that the author questions the values of his work from a rather high vantage point, which may be valid but it annoyed me. For a well-informed opinion to be made, I'd think that it takes an amalgamation of different viewpoints, not just from the high medians. Besides, one must see how everyone else in the same profession has it in other areas. $80k for the 1st job? Not many places around the world, seriously. Based on how much underpaid/overpaid you are comparatively to your responsibilities plus where you stay, each combination forms an entirely different set of values to question, different set of objectives to purse. That is why I found the article well-intentioned but not well-informed and in a way, misleading as most articles involving start-up programmers.

Of course I meant in the industry itself. Project-based programmers working until midnight for $40k annum with no extras, that's back-breaking alright. Working 9-6pm, comparatively for $80k isn't.

I stopped reading about 1/2 way into the article. Brace yourself, the rant is coming...

<rant> Too many red flags springing from a delusional, narrow-minded view which looked no further than the bloated world of Valley startups. Hope mr. Author could cast his eye to some other corners of the world (no, even other parts of the States) and witness the bleak reality of a career called web development. Startups are just a small part, albeit the highlighted part of the system. What would you then call those developers who do back-breaking work, with a fraction of your starting salary, in a dead-end career path surrounded by an equally depressing environment? Low-class web developers? They are just like any other programmers out side, people who chose coding as a profession. Before all the perks, freedom and fun, this is a job. You work for your pay, period. I am sick and tired off seeing another article with a viewpoint through rose-tinted glass about values of coders. Enough is enough. </rant>

<conclusion> There are overpaid programmers and there are underpaid programmers, everywhere in the world. I probably fall into the underpaid camp, that's why I feel annoyed seeing way too many articles with BS about the cool $100k IT jobs for fresh graduates. Where I stay, it probably takes an above average fresh grad 5-6 years of doing good jobs while hopping around (startup/MNC/whatever) to come somewhere close to $100. The media just does not ever cover the average Joe programmer's career path, but this is the reality. </conclusion>

...thus the world enters a new Dark Age.

For non-open source stuff, those pesky NDAs say "You shall not pass !!!". I think it's a very good idea, still.

My two cent is, the reverse can be applied by showing the interviewee some source codes/designs/product.Good programmers definitely cringe at the sight of bad code and excite at sight of good stuff. Same can be said for designers with...well, designs. Rather low cost consulting too for the company who does that. Win-win situation.

This may sound cliche but I also thought of a similar concept when reading the post, with the added aspect of reviewing someone's review for 'karma' points. Self-policing, so to speak.