There are other things to do?????? But seriously, I sideline as by milking cats.

nalorin, I agree with very little being said here. Especially trying to claim only large sites mostly are using ASP and J2EE. That's a crock. Also I disagree with the "experienced coders" thing. Statistics will take care of experienced coders eventually getting a shot at a lot of sites. Even if what I said is not true, then the less experienced coders will interact with the wizards online and learn the techniques. The parameters for site speed are: 1) Capitalization of the web site. More money there then they probably have the money for bandwidth and powerful computers. Also maybe, though not definitely, experienced programmers. 2) Number of coders on the project. If there is one, then that person will not have the time to fix all slowdowns caused by software. 3) Are the coders full time or doing it in their spare time. This is extremely important. The whole impetus behind open source software. If you have a lot of part time coders then things get done. 4) Traffic at the site. Mostly this impacts the Database and bandwidth numbers. The software and servers normally can handle a high load. However the retrieving of data and storing is a relation of RAM in the computer and disk speed. MySQL and PostgreSQL can and do handle high loads. Several of the gigantic sites use MySQL. 5) Volume of data on the site. More data to wade through (in the db) the slower it can become unless hardware or you break up the database and place it on different disks, etc... So answering your question, I would say your anecdotal review of sites is incomplete. I do not believe the language plays a huge part is the speed of the site. MS probably runs ASP and their site is fairly fast. The slowdowns on their site are due to volume of traffic and volume of data that they serve.

Yeah I just looked on the mono-project.com site and there is a windows install of it. If you want cross compatibility you program for Mono and it "should" run on both platforms. It will be interesting if commercial packages convert their code to support Mono or not.

i thought mono was only for Linux installations. John's running Windows.

http://www.mysql.com/why-mysql/case-studies/[^] If you look down the page of case studies you'll see: "Utel handles 10,000 Requests per Second Using a Scale out Deployment of MySQL Network" Not a bad scale out in my opinion. Are you sure you researched this topic enough to flame the product? Maybe you didn't optimize your db or something.

Anything done overtly will get you fired. Are you ready to stand up against evil? or just pay lip service. This could be a test by the company of your morality and values. Only you will know whether its just a test. Right now I assume you believe this wasn't a test. Since you are continuing to read this, it wasn't a test. If you are ready to be a white knight, then you'll lose your job. 1) Document what happened during that event, who was there, anyone who "may" have heard what was asked. The date and time. Etc... 2) If it wasn't your direct supervisor, then tell your direct supervisor. 3) Document that meeting. 4) Contact someone in senior management, preferably the CEO. Tell him and provide documentation to him. 5) Document that meeting. 6) Contact the FBI and ask for direction. They will help direct you to the proper agency. 7) Document that conversation. As the boulder rolls down the hill (i.e. word is spreading amongst senior management) you are looking for a new job. Eventually you will be crushed by the boulder and fired. Maybe the CP people can help you find a new job where personal values mean something.

I believe the problem lies in the question. "How many BOOKS do you read". So they mean paper created books. The younger generation is growing up reading everything online: Newspapers, magazines, research articles, as well as books. They obviously like the Facebook type sites and one has to read the text of their friends all the time. The question should be phrased as "How many works by a publishing company do you read?". This would included all the above, but exclude blogs and Facebook type sites. You would also need to ask in terms of time, and then number of works. Most people will know time, but not numbers of works. I read voraciously all the time. A lot is on the internet, mostly computer related or science related items. Paper based materials would be about 12-20 per year for books, and about the same for magazines. However magazines are "scanned" for information, meaning I don't normally read it cover to cover.

Yes you're right. Sorry. I was scanning (at work no less) and didn't go further. Thanks.

Wrong day to promote the Home Server. It will corrupt files. The article and MS itself will tell you ALL of the products including MS products. Microsoft's response? Umm Don't use these products with the Home server when you are sharing folders. Ummm we missed testing those products: OneNote, PhotoGallery, Outlook, Quicken, MS Money, Quickbooks. . . Read for yourself, and no this is not in an attack MS magazine either. Also MS has recreated the problem. The article posts the MS notifications. [^]

IOMega has a nice product, but don't buy it because their product support SUCKS. Mine died 3 days out-of-the-box. They would replace it, but not recover the data. I had migrated data off of boxes and was about to (literally) back that up so that everything was backed up in a shot. I wasn't allowed to open the case and try to load the drive into a computer to recover. Then the biggie, they would send me a refurbished NAS to replace my Brand new one. They sent one, only after I repackaged and sent mine, with no power cable. I was supposed to mind read that only the drive and case come back. Then they sent the power cable. Wrong one. Then I got a hold of someone real who just shipped a shrink wrapped new unit. It has worked since, but it took me TWO MONTHS to get the final drive running. I propose the LinkSys NSLU2 which allows you to plug in your USB drive (I'm assuming you have one already) into this thing and it automagically networks it. Its $78 [^] A friend has that one and it works great for him. Here's a link to tigerdirect for enclosures (put any drive in there you want) [^] This should be a breeze, you just need cold hard cash because initially you're going to spend $50+ for an enclosure to do this with.

It seems like the comments are focused on the initial development of the product. Not the long term maintenance of the system. These practices are designed to let mediocre developers maintenance the products. All of these methodologies come and go. Just like the glut of "new and improved" languages. As a developer it is very hard to keep up with the new and improved process developments. Unlike languages, methodologies must be learned, mentored (if at all possible), and then practiced. How many of us have that luxury? The companies are not at fault because their job is not to "test" and "beta" a new process model. They need to get products out. Our mantra here in my company is the Six Sigma thingy. Another Total Quality thingy that management can grasp and say at the dinner parties and conferences "Yeah! my company is modern too! We use xyz process in our development." As developers we try things, they may not work, so we blow them off. Companies don't have a lot of room for that type of thing. Its very costly. So does the company come up and say "Let's try this!" and then it doesn't work, which means they don't have a product. Sorry about the rambling, there is a lot to the question. I like the fact that as an industry, we're attempting to innovate, refine, and become more efficient and more transparent in what we do. Its a refreshing industry, challenging, and always evolving. What you learned five years ago may no longer be relevant. Oh, and yes, you never did ask a question to be answered, so we answered the unspoken question.

That's a good way to do that. And you are correct, get more than "one" company on your list of clients. One way I time sliced, was to offer them (after the initial longer contract), three month and in some cases when there was a lot of work at several of my clients, a weekly and project by project basis. Kept me at about 60-80 hours a week. In AD time (after diapers when the first boo bear came) I had to scale back. I wish you immense skill because luck doesn't count. You'll do just fine.

I contracted for six years on my own through to Oct 2001. I still do a little now, but am too busy with Operation Christmas Child, and actually getting a degree through Kaplan University (fees include all books, highly recommended institution). The reason I left contracting is because of the internet bust. In Cleveland, OH here, there aren't a ton of businesses. I went to quote jobs for contracting for the upper half of Ohio. Some people including GE and Sherwin Williams contracted with me even though there was zero degree. I didn't make a point of it, but what I gave them was a list of projects and the work I had completed. I don't fluff my work history. Going into business for your self would be way cool for you except, its all you baby. You have to be salesman, and everything else, while programming. Daunting and rewarding at the same time. Financially you have to hold your ground but I had one guy that was a deadbeat. He was "selling" his company and rolled my payable into that deal. Six months later he wanted me to work for him. I turned him down politely and he had the gall to ask for the source code he hadn't paid for yet. Then he started negotiating the price!!! I politely told him, the price was the price, not more, not less. All in all stay with businesses that are not "home based" because that's where my deadbeat was. Him and a few employees working out of his basement. Good luck if you go into contracting. If the planets align and the depressed I.T. business here picks up, then I may consider it again.

El Corazon, Sorry I just have to disagree with you on the premise, but agree with one of your specifics.

El Corazon wrote:

So was mine. I ended up putting myself through school as a gardener (and lots of loans). Life is still what we make it. Sure it is harder, sure there is more effort to make it through. sure the payscales are better. But you still do your best and earn the top rather than the bottom of your payscale.

I worked through it all too. I dropped out of college when the Assistant Dean teaching one of the classes I was "learning" in asked me to teach since "You know more than I do about this". Hrmph. And I'm paying for this? At the beginning of a full workload, I held two jobs. Quit one after a semester and the other was a programming job. After the first year of college the company begged me to work for them full time, and they would pay for night school. My career was launched.

El Corazon wrote:

A four year degree is worth about 8-10 years of experience, so you gain higher ground with a degree. Since I have 22 years of experience, with a BS I would gain an instant one paygrade raise in the limit. I would eventually reach that same payscale without a degree, it only takes longer. You can see how adding a degree can quickly raise your pay brackets. A PhD is three grade levels base salary.

I worked for one and only one company like that (and I know you are stuck with the government requirements), and I was asked by another company to work for them. I left the first myopic company where the programmers were asking me for help with their programs, but I was an un-degreed lowly tech. Their loss. What I agree with you on, is if you are starting out in our field the degree is perceived to be worth 8-10 years of real experience. It gives you a leg up in most organizations if you have a degree. Once you pass the 8-10 year mark of experience you can triumphantly, AND MAGICALLY I might add, say you are "worth it" now. I would be the first to hire a programmer who has worked in companies for 6 years against 99% of the degreed programmers exiting a college. They may lack some knowledge, but I can mentor them and direct them. If they are truly one of us, then they will grok it quickly. Good dialogue, gets both sides of the debate out.

El Corazon wrote:

Now that is maximum, what you earn, you earn by doing the work and demonstrating that skill.

I'm not sure I'm out of context here, but the way I read this, you are incorrect. You aren't earning the max by doing, you are artificially limited by the management's arbitrary scale. If you know X and degreeGuy knows X, then you should be paid for what you know and the application of that knowledge. Assuming (there's a risk here of assuming) that you both know and apply X. It is WORTH the same to the company no matter who X comes from. So they are profiting by putting you down, not because of your intelligence, but because circumstances were not perfect so that you could go to college. My family was on welfare (5 kids, mom, no dad), couldn't afford college (there are WAY more fees than the grants give you), etc... So I am penalized by some pinhead who came from suburbia? I don't think so. Sorry for the rant.

Been programming since 1979. I "have no fomal twaining". I am not taking online I.T. courses and am learning almost nothing new. In some cases, there might be a hole in your knowledge that gets filled in. But nothing that is immediately useful. Book and Application learning are the key to this field in my opinion. These people who weed people out of interviews based on college or certification, are myopic. Some managers are like that and you will never get the job. So it depends on whether you look at the world as: "Most managers look for college in the field and/or certifications", or "Most managers look for applications and experience". I was in a flame war with someone here that was clearly a cert guy. I received all my jobs without college or cert. I am currently a team lead with a $9B market cap global manufacturer. They don't seem to mind. However, I won't make it to Director unless I have a B.S. degree. That's my view, not the company's statement.

I second that, except make the Space character a functional part of the language. Why relegate the lonely space to nullability? Who played God and said the space was just a holding character? I make a motion that all spaces be removed and that the space become the "If" in the conditional statement. I further motion that W replace the space and a lowly holding character. Sample code: wwww ;=1w)=)+23 wwww#)=2 Could be written to make it pretty wwww ;w=w1w)w=w)w+w23 wwww#w)w=w2 That says if semicolon equals one then right parenthesis equals right parenthesis plus twenty three else right parenthesis equals two. OHHHH the elegance of it all. It is so clear and maintainable.

Josh, There are always people to make up a new language to do something, but no one to modify an existing language to do that too. Some things cannot be accomplished in previous languages, but I believe there is alot that can be done, instead of making up a new language, and then the creators of that language have to come up with terms no one understands because the words used are not used the same way in that language. *taking a breath right now* F# looks like APL, and LISP and Haskell, etc... I agree with some of the newer ideas about iterative approaches, but someone HAS to be smart enough to be able to present it clearly and in a maintainable manner in a language. I think that's a summary of all of the posts. No one can comment on the language because you haven't spelled out what each line is accomplishing. If you did that, then you may be able to move people to look into the language further. To me its just another language that is either so specialized we'll never use it or another one of the languages that proclaims itself to be able to kill all other languages. I still use C alot. Supposed to be killed by C++, which was killed by Java which was killed by C# which only runs on one platform with work being partly done on another platform. Ruby is a web language killer, whereas Python was supposed to be, PHP before that, and Perl. The cynic rests his case.

Josh, Even if you aren't the "ALL KNOWING PROGRAMMER" someone else suggested, it would be very easy for you to setup MySQL and/or PostgreSQL on Windows or Linux. So don't think it will be this huge undertaking. Less than a man-day (8 hrs), and most likely an hour will do. The reason I say a man-day is because you'll want to read some documentation and test out the interface and maybe load a graphical or web based admin package. Lots to tinker with. But going all open source would be easy to do and the solutions, while probably not the 100% BEST IN THE WORLD are above the 90 percentile and "good enough" for you. Good Luck.

Buyer beware though. They are making cheaper versions of the consoles without all the bells and whistles. You need to read the packaging to ensure you are getting what you want. For instance the Wii is coming out with a console that does NOT support the previous consoles' games. You can only play Wii games. I agree with the other posts, i.e. "It depends on what games you want to play". Pick out your games first and then buy the console that they all run on. If you don't know the games you'll play, then there was another post about the "seriousness" of gaming. Simple pick up and play games are on the Wii, Xbox in the middle to upper "you have to read a manual in order to play", and the PS3 is a serious "you have to TRAIN yourself" to use the game. Especially the First person shooters. I have to say the Xbox Halo serious is cool. My nephew has one. Online gaming with first person go Xbox and PS3.