Java is cool cause non programmers remember it's name.

i luv java cuz you they have a wikid javascript tutorial on codecademy

I was trying to interact with this conversation at work, but for some silly reason, I can't post replies here on my phone anymore. Oh well.

I was hoping it was somewhat obvious that I wasn't picking on Java, or the fact that she wants to learn Java, but the thought of spending many hours trying to run a program from the command line and believing you can create an amazing program all while struggling with Project 0. I honestly don't give a **** about language wars. Do what makes you happy.

Yes, she is very much a corporate-minded person. She prefers working with well-defined hierarchies and thick lines of job-definitions, which caused many issues with us. I just don't have a job where I can set aside N time to commit to anything. Of course, it didn't help that she felt I knew nothing about computers, and thus was completely worthless to her, but I don't tip my hand like that.

If I was still spear-heading this, it would be a difficult decision for me to make. She brought up the idea of doing something like this quite a bit, but I'd have to be able and willing to either help her myself or find someone to dive in with her. I just don't have the resources available to do either, which is a crummy spot.

Trying to figure out how to make employees happy while factoring in company needs is a very tough balance to make. I surely would not go out of my way to make someone miserable, nor would I deny anyone the ability to grow. If she was to get good at Java and used that to find a job in Big Co or wherever else (which I'm sure is her intent), then I'm all for it, and I'll be the first to cheer someone on and congratulate, and yes, even actively encourage self-improvement so they can find self-actualization, even if it means they go off and find another job.

I've got the maddest respect for folks struggling with project 0, yet, dreaming about the awesome stuff they can build with the tools of choice.
The main reason being, I suspect, because I have become disentchanted over the years and that type of passion hasn't been mine for a long time.
The secondary reason being that, in most cases, they are right. It may not be the perfect angle or solution, but almost any solution is better than none.

One example coming to mind was a guy I knew with basically zero programming skills who wanted to hack CS Source to not connect to Steam so it could be run on uni network servers. Guess what, he succeeded in less than four months. Without using prefabricated parts.
Not quite mindblowing, but shows how important motivation is.

Quick question on the off chance someone knows because this stuff is way too frustrating for me. I just got an Apple Dev account from work which seems to be linked to my apple ID (it's a volume dev account thingy). Makes sense.

What if I want to develop an Apple app in my freetime. I obviously can't use the work dev account. Can you link to dev accounts to one Apple ID or do I need a second apple ID to get a second dev account?

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1...eloper-program

It looks like you can have multiple dev accounts on one apple id but people prefer to leave it separate if you keep reading. Old answer though and might have been changed for selecting by now though.

I had multiple accounts under different apple ids and they made me consolidate under the original account. This was maybe a year and a half ago, and the first dev account was no longer active at the time I opened up the second

I had the same thing - but for some reason my security question is still the one my Mom set up when she used my ID once. I can't find a way to change it and none of the answers she thinks she gave work.

You can send a reset email to your "rescue email address" to reset security questions. If that link does not appear (e.g. no rescue email address set up), you'll have to contact Apple support for help.

Somehow I was able to change my password. But I can't enable two-step verification without changing the security question. It's some kind of really dumb bug/loophole.

Yes and no. I mean, we are talking about people that don't study at home and want to learn Java, config, JVM, and working with 3rd-party APIs on work time. For certain, we all dreamed of something large when we first started, but I think that something large is small beans compared to what they are trying to take on.

irt to disenchantment: I think one of the benefits of working for a non-tech company is that you really get to learn about tools from an end-user perspective. If you are technical (and you are willing to use it), you create something that you own deeply because you are working on solving problems you lose sleep over.

I don't buy the "better than nothing" argument. I think many of the tools used by small business ultimately cause the company to lose money in the long-run. My coworkers and I aren't professional programmers, but with two remote servers, FOSS programs, a database, VBA, one-off macros, Excel equations and JavaScript, we've created many tools to make up for the short-comings of the systems we are forced to work with. In a perfect world, there would be a department solely dedicated to creating a robust company-baked system that unifies everything, works as advertised, and isn't a total money-sink. I'm not entirely sure if this is possible with the current knowledge pool, but we did compare what we created with 3rd party tools, and to be honest, what we created is far better, so there is some hope.

When this talk of creating something started a long time ago, there was an open debate about languages. I shot down C# (not paying), Pascal, and C++. I did suggest using Python, Java, or Ruby, only because it would be easiest to find replacements. Of course I would most prefer to use Python since that is one of my better languages, but since I have no part of this, I didn't push for anything.

There was myriad reasons Python was shot down, but the two main ones were omg! significant white space and "no one uses it for anything."

I was fascinated by how emotional and irrational this whole debate was even among people with no knowledge. I'd love to see experts debate this stuff.

Lol at someone suggesting Pascal.

Maybe they were fans of Tangled?

Delphi was pretty far ahead of its time imo. Pascal was also the first language I learned after Basic (qbasic yay)...sole reason being...can create .exe files yay.
I think I still prefer Pascal calling conventions to C-style.

Pascal was the second language I learned in High School after Turing.

I think they switched to Java the next year.

Forget Pascal, Forth is where it's at.

Does everyone love their job at first, or did I just luck out?

Been at my job for 4 weeks now and it is ****ing awesome. Most everyone is intelligent and very kind. I get to work on lots of new code. The dress code is pretty much wear whatever you want as long as it is not offensive. Attendance is basically come in and leave whatever time you want as long as your work gets done. If something comes up you just work from home that day. Etc. etc. etc.

If Delphi does all that embarcadero claims, then it is still ahead of its time, right?

http://www.embarcadero.com/

We used Embarcadero's C++ Builder XE7 in one of my courses. Holy **** does a regular license cost a ton!!!

That's basically my situation.

It's definitely lucky but not unheard of at all in the programming world. I'd say about half the programming jobs I had have been like that. But a couple have been pure hell - due to psycho bosses.

Same situation for me. I'm just over 6 months in and still very happy. Slightly less thrilled than I was 6 months ago just because the last two big projects I've worked on were asks from someone for whom the priorities are constantly changing.

On any project from her there's a point somewhere in the back half where things change to such an extent that you're wondering "oh ****, how much of this work can I salvage"

She's really smart, her department is very important, and there's a lot of unexplored territory there so requirements legitimately do change quickly, but it can still be frustrating.

Showerthought for the day: javascript uglification is at the point where even function names can be uglified. But why can't you have an overall uglifier which processes css and html/templates as well? As right now, you can not uglify JS and CSS selector names as the views aren't uglified i.e. the selectors would not match. But there's no reason why you can't.

Someone get going on that.

Uglification is against the spirit of the web. (Note: we uglify our JS.)

Attributes that are bound to the DOM (CSS classes, ids, attributes, etc) cannot be uglified outside of a monolithic framework that controls all such access to the DOM (i.e. GWT) because they are global and by definition accessible from other parts of the application. Even in Javascript, minifiers generally can only minify names in local context where all references are statically determined - this isn't a big problem because most well-written Javascript apps and frameworks are written such that very few identifiers are globally accessible.

Right but something like gulp could be told of all in points of all front end assets and process them all on any change. Obviously probably not worth it but surprised I haven't seen it yet.