Re: Job Market for Lisp and Haskell programmers, serious question.

On 2008-09-06 17:31:58 -0400, pjb@informatimago.com (Pascal J.
Bourguignon) said:

> Who steals?

People who make unauthorized copies of other peoples property (as if
you didn't already know this).

On 2008-09-06 17:14:25 -0400, "John Thingstad" <jpthing@online.no> said:

> To provide a more relaistic pricing of services.

Taking something that belongs to someone else is not "a more realistic
pricing of services," it is what we call stealing.

namekuseijin <namekuseijin@gmail.com> wrote:

> On 6 set, 08:01, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>> Making music also takes effort.
>
> That used to be true before the 20th century.

This is still true. Making crap doesn't take effort anymore.

--
Resistance is futile. You will be jazzimilated.

Scientific site: http://www.lrde.epita.fr/~didier
Music (Jazz) site: http://www.didierverna.com

EPITA/LRDE, 14-16 rue Voltaire, 94276 Le Kremlin-Bicêtre, France
Tel. +33 (0)1 44 08 01 85 Fax. +33 (0)1 53 14 59 22

On Sun, 07 Sep 2008 10:37:34 +0200, Didier Verna
<didier@lrde.epita.fr> wrote:

>namekuseijin <namekuseijin@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 6 set, 08:01, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>>> Making music also takes effort.
>>
>> That used to be true before the 20th century.
>
> This is still true. Making crap doesn't take effort anymore.

Making crap never took much effort - the difference now is lots of
idiots will pay big bucks for it.

George

Some entity, AKA namekuseijin <namekuseijin@gmail.com>,
wrote this mindboggling stuff:
(selectively-snipped-or-not-p)

> On 6 set, 08:01, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>> Making music also takes effort.
>
> That used to be true before the 20th century.

Wow, now I can be the Gershwin of the 20st century, without the need
to learn all these crazy blots on these stupid lines with all those
irritating #'s, b's [1] ?

The learning of the basics of the musical alphabet must have been
a monumental waste of time, just like all these irritating parenteses.

But, lisp is like making a symphony.
Not cobbling togetheter some muzak from the obligatory max of "loaned"
bars of canned stuff others composed and have a computer fill in the
blanks.
That is knowing howto play pianola: (insert coin, choose roll, push
play, move fingers & look smug)

[1] sharps and flats

Cor
--
Mijn Tools zijn zo modern dat ze allemaal eindigen op 'saurus'
(defvar My-Computer '((OS . "GNU/Emacs") (IPL . "GNU/Linux")))
SPAM DELENDA EST http://www.clsnet.nl/mail.php
1st Law of surviving a gunfight : Have a gun !

"Benjamin L. Russell" <DekuDekuplex@Yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:a7fsb4pot97hges75ksn9fr0i8qumg1rbs@4ax.com...
[ SNIP ]
> To my astonishment, I once read somewhere that the average number of
> programming language theory research papers that the average
> programmer reads in a month is zero. At first, I couldn't believe
> this. But having worked as a liaison between programmers and
> marketing staff, I think it is quite true.

If by programming language theory research papers you mean something like
http://cs.ioc.ee/~tarmo/papers/essence.pdf (The Essence of Dataflow
Programming) or
http://www.cs.brown.edu/~sk/Publicat...insp/paper.pdf
(Continuations from Generalized Stack Inspection), then no, you won't see
anyone except enthusiasts, computer scientists and some very few affected
implementers actually reading stuff like that, no.

I'm guessing (just from assorted conversations over the years) that good
programmers do read a greater or lesser amount of technical articles at an
application level...IOW, how do you actually apply a new technology. As you
know yourself, these can be quite involved (certainly not twinky
material)...for example, one of the better Haskell monad tutorials. Or if
you follow the J programming language programmers' mailing list that's a
good example of fairly technical but useful stuff.

You wouldn't really expect average (that includes good and very good)
programmers to read programming language theory research papers. They don't
exactly have much use for the working programmer. Is that the same thing as
saying that those academic papers are useless? No. But only a very small
group of people translate those academic papers into useful concepts for
developers.

It's besically the same as the difference between scientists, engineering
academics, working engineers, and engineering technologists. All of them
operate at their own levels of abstraction, and each group has people who
are capable of translating stuff from domain A into domain B. But most
working engineers won't be reading pure science research papers.

> Most of the programmers whom I worked with were not interested in
> programming theory, or even in programming per se, and spent most of
> their free time in the office watching giant centipedes eating mice on
> YouTube, chatting in Yahoo! Messenger, or sending e-mail. Once, I
> tried discussing the Towers of Hanoi problem with one of them, and he
> replied that it was "a very hard problem" in programming. I couldn't
> believe this. Towers of Hanoi is a first-year student problem for
> computer science students!

Again from assorted conversations over the years I'm guessing that good
programmers _are_ interested in programming, to the extent that they think
ahead, explore new languages and new ways of doing things, and look for ways
to improve what they do. In a decent shop where the developers are fully
engaged in their work (and I've been lucky enough to mostly work in those) I
have seen very few people watch YouTube!, use a chat program, or send
non-work email. Usually in your free time at the office you have your lunch
or coffee. Most people I know who do personal development don't do any of it
at the office.

As for the Towers of Hanoi example, well, I'm not that surprised. Bear in
mind, most programmers out there don't have a CS degree. The US Department
of Labor has for 2006 that almost 8 out of 10 programmers had an associate
degree, almost half had a bachelor's, and nearly 2 in 10 had an advanced
degree. The NSF found that the most common majors for graduates working as
software developers were engineering (35 percent) and CS (31 percent)...10
percent have a non-science/engineering degree. Very roughly speaking, then,
maybe 15 percent of software developers actually have a full degree in CS.

That's not to discount the value of the non-CS degrees, nor to over-inflate
the value of one, or even to denigrate the value of a person with no degree.
All of us have worked with CS grads that don't know shit, and conversely
worked with someone who has a 2-year diploma, or a degree in English, who
really knows their stuff. But the numbers do show that as a rule you can't
expect typical programmers to be deeply conversant with algorithms or data
structures or...well, lots of things.

> The problem seems to be one of lack of time and lack of interest. Most
> programmers seem to be force-fed programming technologies that they
> are not interested in, in a manner in which they are not allowed to
> explore what is interesting about the topic. Therefore, they learn to
> hate the topic, and proceed to spend all their free time trying to
> forget about programming.

Well, imagine working in a Web shop where you do nothing but PHP and CSS and
Javascript, with an occasional foray into trivial SQL. For a few years as a
junior developer you could probably stay interested, but eventually you'd
have to consider suicide, or do as you said - spend all your free time
forgetting about what you do at work.
[ SNIP]

AHS

On Sep 6, 11:14*pm, "John Thingstad" <jpth...@online.no> wrote:
> På Sat, 06 Sep 2008 23:07:07 +0200, skrev Raffael Cavallaro *
> <raffaelcavallaro@pas-d'espam-s'il-vous-plait-mac.com>:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 2008-09-06 10:36:58 -0400, "John Thingstad" <jpth...@online.no> said:
>
> >> These people become billionares from copying things. Most of the *
> >> artist's *don't.
>
> > Most knowledge workers of any kind don't become billionaires. This is no *
> > reason to steal knowledge workers' work product.
>
> >> No other industry execept entertaiment and programs have these profit *
> >> margins.
>
> > Profit margins are high in industries which are not commoditized. This *
> > is no reason to steal knowledge workers' work product.
>
> >> You have thousand that barely get by but a popular few make millions.
>
> > This is no reason to steal knowledge workers' work product.
>
> >> Seems to me sellers of a popular ice cream experience nothing like this.
>
> > Ben and Jerry of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream are both billionaires.
>
> >> Most of the income goes into manefacture.
> >> But since copying cost next to nothing sucess can lead to ridicolus *
> >> earnings.
>
> > Again, just because *some* knowledge workers have "ridiculous earnings"*
> > is no reason to steal knowledge workers' work product.
>
> >> The people who speculate on the 'winners' just go along for the ride.
>
> > Apple is providing a useful service to both cosumers and artists/labels, *
> > namely, making available, legal and authorized copies of these artists'*
> > works in a convenient form. Apple can make money by doing this only *
> > because legal download options are not yet a commodity item (thanks to *
> > the record labels holding out against legal downloads for years). Once *
> > there are a number of players in this market it will become less *
> > profitable. Mind you, Apple makes more money from the iPods sold than *
> > from the iTunes store purchases anyway.
>
> Who said anything about stealing?
> I was thinking more along the line of Ritchard Stallmans GNU incentive.
> To provide a more relaistic pricing of services.
There's nobody who could decide the pricing of something except the
market, even the goverment can't do that. Remeber what happened in
former socialist countries, the pair of quality shoes costs $1 but
they are nowhere to find. If you want those shoes you have to offer
something else to buy them.
>
> --------------
> John Thingstad- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

On Sep 7, 7:17*am, Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas-d'espam-
s'il-vous-plait-mac.com> wrote:
> On 2008-09-06 17:31:58 -0400, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J.
> Bourguignon) said:
>
> > Who steals?
>
> People who make unauthorized copies of other peoples property (as if
> you didn't already know this).

The situation with current shrink wrap software reminds me of the
stand up comedians, they were going place to place performing the same
show. And before the youtube and cheap high quality cameras in your
phone you had to actually pay to see the show, now you only need
internet connection. Some people will still come to see the comedy
show but most won't. Both of us could cry for the good ol' days but
those times are gone( seen Bob Saget asking fans to not put his shows
on yotube?). We could either make only on demand software or accepts
the free riders as cost of doing business. It's ugly but that's the
way it is. And keep the ethics outside of the picture, humans are just
humans, you can't change us, why paying for something they could get
for free. The law of the jungle.

bobi


bobi

On Sep 7, 3:01*am, namekuseijin <namekusei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 6 set, 08:01, Pascal Costanza <p...@p-cos.net> wrote:
>
> > Making music also takes effort.
>
> That used to be true before the 20th century.

Making music will always take effort and a lot of talent. Making noise
is as easy as ever.

bobi

On Sep 6, 11:31*pm, p...@informatimago.com (Pascal J. Bourguignon)
wrote:
> Raffael Cavallaro <raffaelcavallaro@pas-d'espam-s'il-vous-plait-mac.com> writes:
> > On 2008-09-06 10:36:58 -0400, "John Thingstad" <jpth...@online.no> said:
>
> >> These people become billionares from copying things. Most of the
> >> artist's *don't.
>
> > Most knowledge workers of any kind don't become billionaires. This is
> > no reason to steal knowledge workers' work product.
>
> John refered to the people who make copies, not to the knowledge
> workers.
>
> If programmers earned so much money with their art, they wouldn't be
> giving their work for free on the Internet. *Some musical artists also
> start to do the same.
Sounds famigliar. The market values the goods and services offered.
When you are nobody, and you can't sell your product offering it for
free might make you something good. Your fan base will grow. More the
people like your product better chance to monetize it. Maybe some club
owner will like your music and you'll get a gig.
Friend of mine used to be fan of Metallica when they were nobody,
their fans were copying their music and spreading to their friends.
Later they got a label contract.
>
> Those who earn a lot of money are the editors, the production
> companies.
>
> >> No other industry execept entertaiment and programs have these profit *margins.
>
> > Profit margins are high in industries which are not commoditized. This
> > is no reason to steal knowledge workers' work product.
>
> Go tell them, go tell to the "industries" with these high profit margins.
>
> If they sell knowledge products for such a high price, why don't they
> give back more to the knowledge workers?
Because they can.
Why don't companies let you choose do you want to work overtime?
Because they can.
Why don't more and more companies pay for overtime that overtime?
Because they can.

Have you seen the movie about Henry Ford? After the production line
was installed in the factory, the managers were always speeding it up
more and more every day until the people couldn't keep it up anymore.
In the eyes of the bean counters line was only a number and speeding
it up for 2% seemed nothing and would make profits up for 4.37%, but
in the eyes of the workers those 2% were stress terror, broken
marriage and maybe losing an arm. It's the law of the homo economicus.
If something makes your situation better, and you can get away with
it homo economus will do it. It doesn't matter who else will suffer.

bobi


>
> >> You have thousand that barely get by but a popular few make millions.
>
> > This is no reason to steal knowledge workers' work product.
>
> Who steals?
>
> --
> __Pascal Bourguignon__ * * * * * * * * * *http://www.informatimago.com/
>
> ADVISORY: There is an extremely small but nonzero chance that,
> through a process known as "tunneling," this product may
> spontaneously disappear from its present location and reappear at
> any random place in the universe, including your neighbor's
> domicile. The manufacturer will not be responsible for any damages
> or inconveniences that may result.