jstraszheim

It seems pretty unnecessary to call such people liars. Surely they know their own minds better than you.

Anyhow, it is not too difficult to understand the “write for yourself” aesthetic, if you are willing to make the effort. I think Jane Espenson describes it best: http://www.janeespenson.com/archives/00000619.php

My first programming job was for a boss who (we believe) had Asperger's. He was great and the job was great. I mean, he was a bit weird. But so what.

Anyway, it's a serious condition, but beneath it is a real person who may be a great person. Or not. Just like everybody else.

I think it's more likely that the guy got interviewed by an anti-social jerk.

This is very hard for non-nerds. Imagine simply not knowing what Github is, or why you would look there, or having no concept that "Java EE backed by Oracle" is a different beast than "Ruby/Rails in front of PostGres". Imagine if one of your golf buddies knows a guy who knows a guy who is really "good at computers" -- whatever that means -- after all, that guy completely turned around their dot-net application and the seven VB developers in his department.

You've heard of Oracle, right? Microsoft? They're big. You own their stock. You know Linux is hot! Should you take the chance? Ask your nerd friends, like that guy you know who is an MCSE at a "Certified Solutions Provider." He'll know.

Simply knowing who to ask is a matter of chance, I think.

I simply cannot understand how Google can be so short sighted about this. The simple questions: what about an in-the-closet gay teen? or what about a domestic violence survivor? should make their whole stack of cards fall down.

They should have thought these things themselves. In fact, they should have been so obvious that this conversation would be unimaginable.

I don't get it.

Mention one time to your boss that you believe you're very underpaid. Then, don't say it again. If a raise doesn't come, start looking for a better paying job. When you find one, put in your notice, be professional, but don't take the counter offer. It seldom works out.

I dunno. I was out of work for a year once and then settled for a few years of staggering underemployment. I even came to believe that I would never again be hired as a developer, that no company would look at me, that my resume was too weak and I'd never get past human resources. It got really depressing.

Then I met a guy who knew a guy, and they got me back on track. Now I have a very nice job with a very nice company where I do amazing work (if I may say so). So anyhow, there are eight million stories in the naked city. This guy's story sounds like my story. I wish him luck.

Well, I think this is interesting: http://www.linkedin.com/jobs?viewJob=&jobId=1022663

That was a very odd and wonderful comment. Thank you :)

You're wrong. All sorts of people were following me, and me following them, just by clicking the Buzz link.

There is something self-referential about this post, but I can't quite figure out what.

It is nice, those rare moments, when a company has a clue.

I don't know. I think those books are worth reading at some point, but without SICP, Knuth, or Norvig's stuff, it is hardly a great list.

Agreed! I took one look at your mystery meat navigation (after turning of noscript) and hit the close button. If you want to attract talented developers, get a better site.

Just curious, what do you think is the right direction?

OK, a bunch of others recommended it, but I'll add my voice and recommend SICP. There are lots of good books on programming, but it is the best single source. After that, decide what parts of programming you like, and come back asking for more specific books.

Good luck.

Oh, and the stuff Mahmud said about your professors and industry types being phonies is largely true. Not always, of course, but often enough. That you're even on this site suggests that you're prepared to think deeper than them.

It is sort of useless advice, though. If you're the sort of person whose inclined to "do it wrong", you already are. If your not, simplistic advice isn't going to help you find the one correct way to do it wrong. You'll just end up wrong.

His point that Clojure will prove almost as difficult as Java because you have to figure out what to make REFs of seems wrong to me. He is missing the point that the remaining stuff in Clojure is purely functional, and therefore really nothing like Java.

It looks like an awesome book. You can get the PDF for free if you follow the links the article.

Plus I didn't realize it was possible to set the font size to .0000000000001 pt.

I'm pretty much on the right side on all of these. I probably should be getting paid more.

Wow. They are actually for unicycles and banjos. I was expecting some weird, ironically named, social networking sites.

Controversial and flamey topics would shoot to the top and more considered, but denser topics would languish.

Perhaps I've become an FP zealot, but I just can't agree at all with this author's suggestion. Small methods, "agile", unit testing, and all that are fine and lovely, but none of them approach the kind of safety and composability you get from true FP.

Being on the JVM is a very big deal. I have associates who wouldn't think of using a "fancy" language for anything, who are now looking closely at Clojure, and its chief attraction to them is evidently the JVM.

On the other hand, I like it because it is a "new/beautiful and novel language."

Back before it was a public project, there apparently was a Clojure on .net. It appears, however, that it is now pretty firmly matched to the JVM.

Given its present state, it would be about as hard to separate Clojure from the JVM as Java.

Perhaps someone will rip off its ideas and create L#.

I thought this was going to be another rant about strong vs. weak typing.

According to MS it:

"Microsoft Performance Management allows customers to monitor, analyze, and plan their business as well as drive alignment, accountability, and actionable insight across the entire organization."

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/performancepoint/HA1016395...

I don't understand either.

He means the compiled code of a lambda can't be GC'ed. He was creating new functions inside of an eval.

The individual closures created as code executes are GC'ed like everything else.

Since eval is rather specialized, and everyone recommends it be avoided in "normal" code, this is not a major problem.

Plus, it is fixed.

It might be true. I like CL as much as the next guy on YC, but I would quite happy if someone offered me a paycheck to use Closure.

Hell, I'd be happy to get a paycheck using Python at this point.

(I use Java in my day job. It is alright to pity me.)

Nothing big. I've played around with it.