26 Jan
2012
26 Jan
'12
5:52 p.m.
In article <CAMTenCG4tozRK+45Z4wx7FED6MG06JeepKRLCPC1QGkbg=-cUw at mail.gmail.com>,
Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> writes:
I had the opposite reaction. If you wanted the middle picture to be
your career, you should have gotten a PhD and become a researcher,
instead of joining the workforce.
The majority of programming needs have always been fairly dull and
uninteresting. The actual *programming* that companies have asked me
to do for the past 15 years has been fairly unchallenging
technologically in the sense that I didn't need to invent new
algorithms, solve the P=NP problem, create a new computer
architecture, etc. It's been that way for a long time in the world of
applied computer science: most of the basic problems have been solved
and the challenges we face day-to-day are less technological than they
are organizational behavior, teamwork, planning, etc.
Read "Mythical Man Month", and you'll be surprised how many of the
problems discussed by Brooks are still problems today. Well, you'll
be surprised *if* you think that book is about technology problems.
You won't be surprised if you recognize that the book is talking more
about the problems you encounter from humans than from transistors.
After 35 years in the software engineering profession, the more
enjoyable stints were the periods when I worked with a team that had a
jovial and friendly attitude and who I respected as capable and
competent. The less enjoyable periods were when I had to work in an
environment that was uptight and/or contained people of less than
average capacity. It really didn't matter what the coding was about;
the joy in the job really came from the people I worked with more than
what we specifically worked on. Still, all other things being equal,
I'd rather work on 3D graphics than on other stuff. But I'm not
willing to turn myself into a sweat shop worker and go through the game
development meat grinder just to work on 3D graphics. Technology
isn't everything.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 version available for download
<http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>
Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
On 26 January 2012 04:10, Alexis Kotlowy
<thrashbarg at kaput.homeunix.org> wrot
e:
On Thu, 26 Jan
2012 11:14:55 AM Liam Proven wrote:
That's excellent, by the way. Meanwhile, a dot-comrade of mine, a chap
who's doing CompSci at the U
of Missouri, had never heard of Lisp Machines and has never used
anything that isn't a member of the C family. Seems like a sad thing
to me, that.
http://kaput.homeunix.org/~thrashbarg/computerscience.png 