Thanks for reply :) By "challenge people" - I mean, rather than put up with BS, relentlessly challenge it, call it out . One might attack homophobia like this: "You believe in a loving God? OK. Does a loving God smite down someone who finds themselves to be gay, or does God celebrate all committed loving relationships including ones that happen to be of the same gender". OK, I'm very liberal on this, and some Christian friends wouldn't take the same line, but they don't seem to dismiss this argument completely. I have a friend who's happily been going to a Catholic church for decades. He lives with a long-term male partner. He doesn't shout from the rooftops that he's gay but doesn't hide it either. Many people like him a lot. Some of them may think its not OK to be gay, but they like him anyway. They also do seem to believe in "sort yourself out rather than judging other". So it seems to just work out really. I agree with you about churches perpetuating problematic power structures, clericalism and so forth.. But that in itself is people's failings isn't it? Doesn't mean that all or even many Christians are supportive of that. Treatment of women - often women are not treated well , whether in the church or not. Shouldn't be happening.. but again human failings rather than something fundamental about religion or church per se, IMHO. Personally I think that churches such as Catholic, Orthodox etc that don't allow women to be priests, should be re-evaluating that, I don't see that's what Jesus wanted, and its very disrespectful, and wasting 50% of human talent to ban women, IMHO. Little secret, here in the UK amongst Catholic laity you'll find most support women priests. As regards nasty things in the bible, well, taken literally the bible can seem offensive, appalling etc, that's why to me we also need 2000 years worth of theologians thought to interpret it, and need to be careful about going straight to it picking out bits because can get wild misinterpretations that way. To use your example of apparent racism, isn't The Good Samaritan a good counter-example i:e anti-racist? I guess my entire argument is this - when we encounter people claiming to be of a religion that promotes love to each other, and they blatantly do the opposite, we should in the nicest possible way call that out and invite them to do what they claim to believe. Also there's a lot of confusion and misunderstanding about what teachings are, what Jesus really said, a misunderstanding that God is somehow punitive or vengeful which Jesus tried to clear up but we still seem to fall victim to. Well, if you don't believe in all of this anyway, fine, no problem :) There are a lot of atheists out there who behave in a much better way than most Christians. ;) I have a couple of friends like that too. Doesn't stop me arguing (politely) with them though ;)
Its sad that you had such a negative experience of church, due to people's failings. Its not like that everywhere. There are church communities that are welcoming to people that are divorced, gay, etc. Sounds like you've been among people who lack of proper understanding of "love others as yourself" and "judge not lest thy be judged" which are fundamental to true Christianity (and other religions too). I'd advocate, don't give up, don't dismiss religion based on people's failings, but instead, challenge people
100% . People who prioritise helping others, as long as they don't overdo it and burn out, are far less prone to depression. Having a bad day? Feeling depressed, frustrated with your life? Go do something to put a smile on someone else's face. That can really snap you out of it. Of course, we (and I'd have to include myself) all forget to do this as often as we should. I agree that its a secular malady. Its almost as though Jesus was exactly right and knew what was good for us ( * caveat - this is based on an assumption that Jesus actually existed / what he said was correctly reported ;). )
There is absolutely a happy medium here, is there not? e:g mid-level dev that could have been a senior but would rather work from home, do the school run, be around for kids, gets enough code cranked out for employer to be happy but is a decent , present, Dad too? Kids get less material standard of living than some of their peers, but still good compared to most of the world and most of history.
I dispute "slow tools" being always as much of a problem as the article claims. From personal experience, having to wait for a build to finish sometimes makes me get up, and go make a tea or empty dishwasher / hang laundry out, as result feel refreshed and/or subconscious works on a problem. So often I go back to my chair with the solution having come seemingly from nowhere. Only because of the long build time did that happen. ;). A former colleague used to find excuses to have to walk from one office building to another to pick up a cable or something, in order to let his bring solve a problem rather than sit stewing in his chair. So... productivity is complicated. ;)
Its probably common for people to have procrastination problems when working remotely, especially those who are younger and haven't got sufficiently frustrated with their own procrastination and failure to deliver, to address it and develop more self discipline yet. To address the exact Q though - how about pick a 1-point story off the "Refined and Ready" column or whatever you call it, and get that into UAT / Code Review, then at least you got something to show however small. Doing that tends to lead you to, er, start getting on with your other work. ;)
When it comes to reading I believe the best way to help a child learn is simply for parents (or as you also suggest, teachers, if its smaller group / 1 to 1) to (1) take the time and effort to read to kids, and (2) find high quality children's fiction that's interesting and motivating for the child to read themselves. Usually can be found at the library. or second-hand children's classics. So free or cheap. Our daughter is an excellent reader because she's a "bookworm", and her younger brother looks to be going the same way. She is hooked on fantasy fiction, he more on non-fiction about animals, space, dinosaurs. Some people wonder how they're such good readers. My answer is always. - give them books that make reading a joy and fun, then people want to, then they learn. To be honest, its incredible how schools manage to demotivate kids and they end up as "slow readers". Barring some kind of disability, I don't think that's a natural state for a child.
Having known a few people in this situation, yes it is indeed common for people to imagine slights against them. Common for Alzheimers sufferers to wrongly accuse their offspring of stealing from them. This can happen because you're trying to manage their money for them, ensure utility bills are paid etc. Unfortunately, sometimes people become estranged from their families because of this. Don't underestimate the amount of stress you can be under simply giving regular care to a person in this state. Stress is stealthy, it can creep up on you, suddenly you overreact to things, snap etc. So I'd say give yourself a break if you can, don't be afraid to ask others for help. There does sometimes come a time when you have to give up and let the person go to a care home. Its the last thing one wants to do of course. A person in my extended family resisted doing that for a long time, it wasn't pretty, I think the affected person "luckily" died before their behaviour got even more out of hand. The best thing you might be able to do is look into getting some respite from caring and/or have some activities your Mum can go to. There's all sorts out there now in terms of help for Alzheimers patients, community things for example choirs, because learning songs helps memory etc
I hear what you're saying. :). People need to hear home truths that's for sure. Its the only way to improve. However, a bit of humour and warmth wouldn't go amiss would it? When I was a kid I played in a wind band. One weekend we had an ultra-sarcastic military guy conduct us. We reacted first with , WTF? This guy is really rude. It soon became apparent though that he had a heart of gold and could make us play really well. He cared about us, and his brusque manner was only skin deep and/or put on / an "act" . It all turned out to be pretty funny. "You do read music, do you?" was a memorable quip. We were like "can't believe he said that", but I think the recipient of that remark rather liked him in the end. It seemed to me Miles appeared not to know the people need that warmth. Which makes me wonder about autism. I must say, Herbie Hancock, who seems like a nice person and full of the warmth that Miles seems to lack, speaks warmly of Miles. So, maybe I should go away and re-read what Herbie had to say about Miles. ;)
I love Miles Davis' music... but that interview really turned me off him. All Miles had to do was show some kindness and empathy. I did wonder actually if simply Miles was autistic, and unaware how he actually need to behave. Miles could have given helpful constructive criticism at the same time as being warm , friendly , encouraging, but seemed unable to do that, or to empathise about what that kid must have gone away and felt.
If it were me in this situation, I'd take a look at my finances first, and consider when was the best time to leave if I had to, (i:e is it worth hanging in there, or is leaving ASAP consequence-free financially). Then do some research into new jobs. If the market is dead you may need to tread carefully. If when job-searching you get some "bites", you can take more risks. Once you have a plan for what to do if you get fired / job becomes untenable, then at that point, go have a frank discussion with your boss. Tell 'em what you told us. "I've done plenty for this company. Now I'm getting trash-talked by a coworker. I'm not perfect but this is unacceptable and I haven't got time or inclination for playing political games. What you gonna do about it?". It'll either (a) blow up in your face, "managed exit" or whatever, but at least you're planned and primed for that, and better off outta there. Or (b) you actually get respect for doing this, coworker gets the fall-out, you go back to happy times. Good luck. :). The moral as always is, particularly in the hyper-capitalist world we live in, today's great workplace may not be tomorrows's. But at least as decently paid tech workers we can save some "partial FU money" and have options other than treated terribly ......
I think you're both right in the sense that, USA is more forgiving of career "mistakes" and people get many chances to "make it big" financially , while Europe is a little more conservative about career history but has better safety net which also gives people chances to re-invent themselves. (Speaking as someone who's lived in both UK and US). :)
Wise words :) However ... 'I won’t be telling my kids to “follow your dream”'. .. well, they'll probably do what they wanna do anyway, won't they? ;) My advice to our kids would be, follow your dreams, but be pragmatic, don't put all your eggs in one basket. If you want, to use random examples, to be a musician or something without reliable income, or spend a lot of time travelling for fun, then you're gonna have to learn how to live on little, e:g learn cheap healthy cooking skills, in extreme situation you might have to live in an old van or tent some of the time. And/or maybe develop some specialist work skill that isn't your ideal profession but brings in money quick when you need it. Alternatively, base your life around a career that pays enough to get by, while allowing free time to follow your dreams maybe by working part-time or something. I know someone who works as a teaching assistant in schools whilst doing lead roles in good quality amateur shows. She seems very happy, presumably happier than if she was professional actress. I guess my argument is , its not either/or, its a trade-off.... BTW we are SO lucky in tech. We can have it all, decent paid job that isn't crazy hours. Take time out to go travelling, come back and as long as you got the skillset you'll get hired again. Some other professions have even more freedom... anything medical, always in need. Nurses can call the shots completely.. (in terms of choosing hours, shifts, career breaks to go be in a show, protect a rainforest by occupying it or something)
Do you mean by being uprooted to different places as a child? This happened to me but I put down new roots and made long-term friends as an adult. I'd think the advice for people lacking roots would be the same as for anyone who lacks friends and/or has lost connections? There are also people who lived in an area all their life but maybe friends moved away etc and they found themselves lonely. Seems to me an answer is get involved with things - volunteering, sports, arts, music etc, and for those religious faith, get involved with that, church or otherwise, as long as its a diverse inclusive tolerant supportive community.
Seems to me the tech industry is more forgiving than many jobs, in the area of gaps , perceived "flakiness" etc. Many employers just care whether you can crank out the required features whilst getting along with colleagues. If yes, you're all set. Maybe you should look at contracting?. No-one cares much what you did before with that, just, can you meet the specific requirements for the next few months. Also, there are startups out there that are open-minded. Its supply and demand. If you work somewhere that can't offer as much pay, they can't afford to be picky about gaps. And a job like that can be a stepping stone to a better one. Been there, done that myself after a couple years out of the industry when younger. Good luck :)
The mental state you describe is not at all unusual for someone working in tech. Try working in the public sector (gov't / academia / non-profit etc) . You won't get paid as much (although you might get a decent pension and other perks). There may be a certain amount of beaurocracy / other nonsense. However, chances are you get to work on interesting stuff with nice people, and since the profit motive is missing, the stress and crazy deadlines are less. You get to do things of long-term value, and deliver things for the sake of delivering them, rather than to get customers paying £/$ by time X. Flexible or even part-time working policies can be more common too. I've worked more in private sector than public, but now in public hopefully for long-term. Its certainly worth spending some time in private sector, but public sector has. a lot to offer too especially as you get older and/or have kids, etc. Good luck :)
I only know one person who openly declared breaking off his toothbrush to save weight. As well as using aluminium crampons and all manner of tricks. This was 'cos he was 60 at the time and his knees weren't as good as they'd been. I'm extremely grateful to him for sharing his expertise leading a climb, taking a number of us up Mt Baker, WA. So, you know, sometimes, quote from Hamlet, "there's method in his madness". ;) Or to quote Tesco's (true but disingenuous) slogan, "Every little helps" ;)
IMHO Americans might like these if they ever got a chance to buy them : https://www.autotrader.co.uk/cars/citroen/berlingo.
Super practical. Not exactly beautiful but hardly worse than a lot of things that cost 4x the price. Take tons of stuff around with you. Fuel efficient. Affordable new, without a huge income. What's not to like? Well, apart from some people being anti-French, they aren't sold in USA presumably because US car-makers and lobby groups have kept them out.
100%. The converse is true, too. Often, people that carry on working well beyond retirement age, are more happy and engaged than peers who retired. The key thing is having enough time to pursue your own interests and time with friends/family rather than employer owning all your time and energy. Also, if one has the health to work part-time into one's 80s, one doesn't then need huge savings or pension because by, say age 65 when you'd hope all mortgage was paid off, you can live on a half-time wage probably . All depends on maintaining your health though....
As a Brit, or should I say English since it seems at least Scotland doesn't wanna be part of UK anymore if given a choice, it seems to me that talking about rejoining the EU, as though the EU countries will just say "welcome back" after the UK has basically "acted like a d*ck" for most of the time inside the EU, shows precisely the kind of arrogance and feeling of superiority that caused the Brexit mess in the first place. Maybe in 25 yrs time perhaps our country / collection of countries/ whatever the UK looks like by then, might be humbled enough to be seen as a helpful partner within the EU....
Depends why you want to learn the theory. If you play an instrument enough, you'll pick up lots of theory, probably enough for an average amateur, naturally, just by learning lots of pieces. Piano is better for this than most I believe as its easy to see what's going on and play chords (vs say, wind instrument that plays just 1 note at a time). If you wanna be a really good amateur (presumably not a pro, as people normally has to start as a kid to do that), or, want some knowledge to help with jazz improv, then I'd say aim for ABRSM Grade 5 theory, possibly do grade 3 or 4 first. If you google My Music theory, there's a ton of free stuff on that website. you can do ABRSM exams online. Good way of checking your knowledge and getting a certificate of proof :). I know some people say you don't need to study theory for jazz improv. Personally, cos I don't play piano or guitar, I found studying theory helps fill in gaps of knowledge eg on chords
Someone I knew had the slow-growing case for quite some time. Then, it abruptly without warning turned into the aggressive form and killed him. Makes it very difficult to know what to expect. I guess frequent checks are necessary, because once its evident, you're already in a world of trouble...
As someone who worked in US over 20 yrs ago on H1B... It was a great adventure in a great country with great people. However, the temporary nature of the visa, with having to leave swiftly if you lose your job, combined with being sponsored and therefore beholden to one's employer, really restricts your options and can give a feeling of limbo. It can affect friendships and everything, the feeling that ultimately you're likely to have to leave. Of course, in theory you can go for a green card. In practice I heard tons of horror stories of people sponsored for green card for years, and pressure to work weekends etc, and then laid off when they nearly got it. When I quit the last job I did in US, HR offered to sponsor a green card and acted like I was nuts and turning down a great opportunity when I said "Thanks but no thanks". My team lead totally understood though. Even if that company can be 100% trusted that they aren't just trying to get me to stick around a year or two, who knows the future. If they made less money and had to do layoffs, you're back to square one with the green card. I guess to a lot of Indians and Chinese, USA is sufficiently better than back home in certain ways, they feel its worth sticking it out and trying to get a green card. But my gosh, the stress, pressure, uncertainty, possible wasted years, inability to fully put down roots. Nowadays I'm surprised most Indians and Chinese don't just go for Canada or Europe - seems a lot better systems. And the daft thing about all this... if these H1B workers were given more permanent status sooner, they'd contribute to US economy by buying houses, furthering their career, perhaps starting companies and hiring people. Sure some people ultimately do that starting out from H1B, but it really is difficult. But it was a great experience working in USA and I'm thankful for the privilege. :)
"doesn't it make very hard to wrap your head around complex code bases after they grow beyond what you can keep in your head at the same time (as any other dynamically typed language)?" - I'd say Smalltalk's really nice simple development environment, with the debugger being super easy to use, saves your bacon here. I always found it very easy indeed to inspect code, find out what it's doing. And there was less code in the first place. I think you raise a valid concern, but other strengths of the language and its development environment make this less of an issue than it might be. Somewhat hard to explain - best to download Pharo, read Pharo By Example, and have a play :)
Absolutely. And, this idea is not at all new. Here's an example from the early 90s of a similar thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shlaer–Mellor_method. It was tried on projects, then failed to deliver. Some people at the time asked Qs like "How would one debug the code that has been generated from UML models?" and were waved aside. EDIT - its the automatic generation of code from that methodology that I particularly took issue with, although, not a big fan either of tons of custom UML-like diagrams