It’s Very Hard to Be Positive
Posted by Noah | Filed under general, technology
I’ve been trying really hard to be more positive lately, more specifically just to keep my mouth shut when I see people walking into the proverbial wood chipper; and I must say it’s very hard.
I wrote a post, a great post, it was about how nutty a certain group of people are because it takes them forever to develop even simple business problem solving applications. However I deleted it because it wasn’t productive, they’re not going to stop and I’m not forced to grind my brain into paste with their bad technology.
What was really bothering me was that they’ve got the corporate buzz and the jobs. They get respect from management types because they spend an awful lot of time and energy looking like they’re really working hard and are busy and writing really good software because they have unit tests and strong types, abstraction and isolation and they bloody well let you know. They take every opportunity to talk about, diagram and extoll the benefits of what they’re doing. In the end they solve the same problem at considerably higher cost and taking considerably longer than I feel is necessary.
Python programmers get no respect. It’s not like our code doesn’t get the job done, does strange things or randomly stops working. It’s not like we don’t have unit tests or that our code isn’t abstract or reusable, and if your code does the job and passes the tests why does it matter if it’s strong typed or isolated? Sure you can make academic arguments as to why, I’m not ignorant, I’m practical think about it, life isn’t an edge case, just because my variables aren’t strong typed doesn’t mean they don’t behave in a highly predictable way. It’s not like their code is based in science and my code is powered by magic ferries. They both run predictably and if you’re so inclined can be proven to operate consistently.
Honestly, I’m jealous. There’s a lot of jobs out there for Java, .NET (sometimes they don’t even specify a language), PHP and surprisingly Perl developers but almost none for Python. Which boggles my mind because it’s a very good language and most people who try it end up liking it. Not to mention from a business case point of view it’s highly productive, I guess it’s getting used a by people in the OSS community and on the cutting edge of a few areas of development and not companies like Initech who I suppose employ the majority of developers. Maybe right now it’s just more irritating because I haven’t been able to find a full time gig so I can stop consulting. It makes me wish I’d sold out and learned .NET or Java a few years back, maybe I wouldn’t even know how monotonous and wasteful my efforts were.
Tags: business, technology, the future
Why We Need to “Solve” Global Climate Change
Posted by Noah | Filed under politics, technology, the great outdoors
I don’t think man kind is causing global climate change, at least not through our cars and industry, I’m not sure the planet is even getting any warmer (or more energetic)…but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and solve the problem.
No we need to fight it like we fought the World Wars because of what it will do for us. That kind of human effort results in new technologies, new ideas, improvements in all areas of life. No the wars were bad, don’t get me wrong; but look at all of the fantastic technology that came from them and what they did for the human spirit.
“War bad, passionate effort good.”
So what if all of our efforts don’t change the climate? Can you really argue that it’s going to hurt for us to “green up”?
I want hydrogen powered electric cars that don’t need major service.
I want homes that only require a fraction of the energy to maintain a temperature and are safer. Fiberglass insulation has as much to do with not burning to the ground as it does with keeping you warm, think of what we might develop in the future! I’m sure glad we aren’t filling our walls with pop-corn anymore (no really, people used to do that).
I want a replacement for concrete that doesn’t require nearly as much energy to produce. Not so much because of the use of the energy is bad in and of itself, but because it would be cheaper, how do I know it would be cheaper? Because even if it was more energy efficient it wouldn’t catch on if it wasn’t cheaper. That, and because energy is expensive. The same way that stone went out when fired bricks came in and fired bricks went out when cement blocks came in. Better, safer more efficient homes for more people.
I want there to be oil left in 2108 so my grand children can have quality plastics and lubricants and “just in-case” they need it.
I want energy efficient bio-degradable cellphones and computers, not because I want to use less energy but because less energy means lower EMR and less EMR means less cancer, and biodegradability means I don’t have to pay someone to handle it’s toxic carcass.
We need to pursue this “green thing” because it’ll make our lives better, not because it’ll make it worse if we don’t, loafing around as a people will make our lives a lot worse.
Tags: economics, environmentalism, global warming, the future
