So the Google ecosystem was a bad idea after all. I knew it. First they lure you in with a slick web mail client and a couple of gigabytes of storage. Then they buy up a bunch of companies, including YouTube. Then they link your Google and YouTube accounts together. And now your Google identity is suddenly your YouTube identity which is linked to your real name. I didn't ask or sign up for the vast majority of this!
I don't really use YouTube so I can't say, but is there anything preventing you from keeping separate accounts on Gmail and YouTube, something that makes it less convenient than if these websites were run independently of one another?
It seems that Google will log you in across all of their services if you log into one. So to use separate names, you would have to be logging in and out whenever you switch services.
> I use Python because it balances getting stuff done with having that stuff not fall over as soon as I turn my back.
Uhh... Heard of automated testing?
It makes absolutely no difference what language you write your code in, whether it's PHP, Python or Brainfuck - reliability is dictated by your testing strategy, not the language. In the PHP applications I write, the only things that break are the things I didn't test.
Have you tried automated testing on a large complex web application? It's an insanely monumental task.
I actually mentioned Haskell in the post because coworkers have lamented not having its type system, which would immediately find problems at compile-time that we otherwise have a very very hard time thoroughly covering with tests.
Hi, Can you elaborate a little more on some use-cases or some examples from your troubles?. Am writing a web application(moderately complex) in python and find myself annoyed by the amount of unit test cases needed. My reaction so far has been to write them whenever i seem to test more than a couple of times. But, have a feeling dynamic typing is actually creating problems by enlarging the number of test cases. Don't know enough haskell to comment on it's type system, but curious to learn. P.S: Feel free to mail me, if you don't want it to be blog post.
There are plenty of cases where a data type doesn't sufficiently capture semantics, and without static typing, Python isn't very well built for checking that values have the right semantic type. A float could mean money or time or a percentage; a string could be plain text or HTML or JavaScript or a filename.
The really really hard part is still checking that a given page "isn't broken"—something that's easy for a human to spot but hard for a computer—for all possible combinations of state. But very strict typing would at least make the output less likely to break.
>Have you tried automated testing on a large complex web application? It's an insanely monumental task.
What's so insanely monumental about writing unit, functional (i.e. like these http://symfony.com/doc/current/book/testing.html#functional-...) and Selenium tests to cover everything before committing new changes? It's just like any other code - test the main condition and edge cases and everything will be running smoothly next time you come back to that feature.
This is quite the oversimplification of the value vs. costs of automated testing while also being completely orthogonal to the discussion. I'd never accept "automated testing" by itself as a strong argument to prefer PHP or anything for that matter.
I merely provided a rebuttal to the argument that PHP, or any other language, for that matter, is unreliable. I did not make the case that automated testing somehow makes PHP a preferred choice. How you test the code is what dictates reliability, not the language.
I'm not sure how you can possibly separate the concept of a rebuttal from that of making an argument. And as I've alluded, how you test code does not, in fact, dictate any form of quality or reliability in and of itself.
>Yes, in principle they could learn that stuff; but they consider it to be a waste of their valuable time, for which they have other priorities.
Yet they spend their valuable time on watching television while being bombarded with adverts and forced to come back because their favorite series always ends with a cliff-hanger. Or they are drinking. Or they are working excessive hours because in spite of the fact that we have automated massive swathes of work, five days a week is still the standard, which makes absolutely no sense. Or they are too stressed by their dire financial situation because we have an economy based on gambling and usury.
My point is that people are naturally curious creatures who, given the time and opportunity, are quite capable of learning anything.
When we have a society which spends a great deal of resources constantly diverting peoples' attention, creating fake demands and generally holding an air of chaos, is it a wonder that nobody can be bothered to learn how to operate a revolutionary class of machines which provide one with knowledge about anything and everything?
By dumbing things like this down, we are approaching the problem from the wrong end. We need to work on creating a bigger leisure class which will naturally be inclined to understand it's environment better, since it will actually have the time and focus necessary to do so.
By another way of analogy - we're in the position of the 16th century puritans (in this case tech nerds) asserting that ofcourse everyone must learn to read (or operate computers) so that they can read the Bible (internet) for themselves and interpret the word of collective wisdom directly. Notice how the result of that battle was not to dumb down the English language, which is unnecessarily complicated in many places, but to teach people how to use the bloody thing. This is a similar situation.
>It should be pointed out, infairness, that the US Navy will also be using these drones to detect drug running in the Caribbean and I don't think anyone would object to that
I'll object to it. It's nobody's business to dictate to people what they can do with their own bodies. The current drug laws create a black market and fuel gang violence. As demonstrated by countries like Portugal, treating drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal issue reduces addiction rates and side effects from drug consumption. Thus, anything which polices the current drug laws is destructive by it's very nature.
Word of advice - if you know anything about the code that nobody else does, use it as leverage. Come in one day, call your boss into an office and tell him you're quitting. When he asks why - voice your problems with the tools you work with. Offhandedly suggest that you actually wouldn't mind staying if work wasn't such a pain in the ass thanks to these issues. Outline how much it will cost them to train a new employee up and how much cheaper the hardware is in comparison.
Alternatively, just complain incessantly without threatening to quit if you can't get another job easily.
Reason I say this is that me and my team have been working on shoddy hardware for the last six months, then we put our collective feet down and demanded something better. Now we each have a pretty damn sweet system to work on.
I don't think you want to be living a life where you have to issue ultimatums to get what you need. The world is a bigger place. Find better work and go and do it. You can remind them of the things you've been unhappy about by leaving. If everyone did that (instead of sticking in dead-end jobs) it would be much harder to create crappy jobs.
Yet companies act in exactly that way towards their employees. Late too many times? Ultimatum is issued where you get fired if it happens again. Too many sick days? Same result. Underperforming? Yup, you guessed it. Your employers are not your friends - do what you have to to make your life easier. IMO, ofcourse.
A good employer will talk to you and try and work things out before giving you an ultimatum. You lose little, and can make things a lot easier, by doing the same.
For most people quitting your job is an extremely risky proposition. Even if you do have a financial safety net, there are no guarantees other employers will be jumping at the opportunity to give you a job.
what do you do when you are the new guy ? 1-6 months int the current company ? Also i'm not the only dev ,there are atleast 3 other guys that can do the stuff i do. :|
Are they also working with sub-par equipment? If so, put in a request together with them. Otherwise, put in the request yourself. If they turn it down, look for another job and put this one down as a contracting position. In my experience, employers in this industry pretty much never ask for references anyway, in the UK at least.
