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cafel posted:I don't think it's quite as clear cut that urban and exurban sprawl, reduced air quality, climate change and the global political effects of the American demand for cheap fossil fuels are completely balanced out by the ability to easily take road trips. Do you feel the slightest hint of irony posting that surrounded by products (especially food) that could only exist and be delivered to you with the extensive logistical network that automobiles (trucks) enable?
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Jul 13, 2014 01:54
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enraged_camel posted:Perhaps the problem is that you are trying to attach too much meaning to that statement to begin with. I simply posted it in response to your dismissal of Silicon Valley as "businesses out to make money as they should." No, SV is a lot more than that. To understand this, you need to understand how innovation happens. I suggest (re)reading Leperfresh's post. You're still ignoring the fact that Sillion Valley hasn't been the prime driver of innovation in the Unites States for 60 years. Provide one source to back up this incredible assertion. Also I'm pretty sure that the Agricultural revolution has done more for the American standard of living than your unspecified ways in which SV has. It's the idea that SV can lay claim to 60 years of American innovation is so absurd and frankly ignorant of the history of technology let alone the facts of what improves "quality of living" (hint: it's not having a smart phone). This is the exact "SV is the center of the world" attitude that leads to idiotic ideas like reservationhop.
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Jul 13, 2014 02:12
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on the left posted:The advantages heavily outweigh the disadvantages. Who wants to live in a world where the vast majority of people never venture more than 50 miles from home? on the left posted:Do you feel the slightest hint of irony posting that surrounded by products (especially food) that could only exist and be delivered to you with the extensive logistical network that automobiles (trucks) enable? I don't see why we couldn't have a similar level of mobility and productivity without the automobile. Perhaps we'd have denser population centers and a better, national public transportation system. Regardless, I don't deny that the automobile is in many ways responsible for modern life. I'm just trying to point out that they have created equally large problems. And - to try to tie this back to California politics - refusing to acknowledge the problems with our car-oriented culture is the same kind of techno-utopian thinking that is everywhere in Silicon Valley. To further tie this back to what is happening in San Francisco in particular, it is useful to think about the history of Valley innovation. Roughly speaking, there was the dot com boom, the Web 2.0 boom, social networking, and the app revolution. Right now, the sharing economy is the hot space to be in. These companies -- AirBnb, Uber, Task Rabbit, etc. -- provide tremendous conveniences in the short term, but, like the automobile, have the potential to create long term problems in the future. For instance, AirBnb undermines traditional tenancy regulations, Uber is creating a permanent class of at-will contractors (someday to be replace by robots), and, as we're starting to see, companies like MonkeyParking and ReservationHop are inserting middlemen between what were previously public (e.g. parking) or free (e.g. reservations) goods and services. So, to extend your example, the automobile gave us tremendous personal freedom and conveniences, but it is quite literally destroying the environment. Previous tech darlings like Google and Facebook gave us free access to the combined knowledge and social history of human experience, at the expense of privacy and NSA spying. Perhaps it behooves us to look at the implications of the next wave of Silicon Valley innovations before they become entrenched and the problems they cause are shrugged off as intractable side effects of modern civilization.
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Jul 13, 2014 03:59
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Trabisnikof posted:You're still ignoring the fact that Sillion Valley hasn't been the prime driver of innovation in the Unites States for 60 years. Provide one source to back up this incredible assertion. I didn't say "the" prime. I said "a" prime. Gotta work on that reading comprehension, brother.
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Jul 13, 2014 05:29
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enraged_camel posted:I didn't say "the" prime. I said "a" prime. So now your admitting that Silicon Valley isn't more important to economic wellbeing and standard of living in America than any other center of innovation (such as the myriad listed in this thread)? If not, can you provide any evidence that Silicon Valley contributed a substantial amount to the economic wellbeing and standard of living of most Americans (for the last 60 years)? I'm not arguing that Silicon Valley (and the entire Bay Area, or does Twitter and Yelp not count as Silicon Valley) isn't an innovation center, but that companies are companies at the end of the day and to ascribe benevolent motives to them is foolish. Tech companies should get as much scrutiny as any other industry and just because "fail often" is a successful strategy doesn't mean ethics get to go out the window. Just because you're an innovator doesn't mean your fiduciary duties disappear. Sure Silicon Valley has had impact, and its impact will grow significantly but to argue that its been a prime mover since 1954 really ignores both the history of Silicon Valley and also the history of technology. We have begun to assume that the only high-tech is digital, but the industries that feed, power, and supply us have made enormous strides since 1954 while the impact of Silicon Valley's innovations is just beginning to be felt. Ask me again in 20-30 years, and I'll probably agree with the premise.
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Jul 13, 2014 07:09
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Trabisnikof posted:So now your admitting that Silicon Valley isn't more important to economic wellbeing and standard of living in America than any other center of innovation (such as the myriad listed in this thread)? I'd say it's in top three. If you look at just tech, it's easily number 1. Easily.
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Jul 13, 2014 09:45
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People are focusing too much on software, too. Kobayashi for example just named "the dot com boom, the Web 2.0 boom, social networking, and the app revolution" as the major waves of innovation from SV. It's called silicon valley, not software valley. Information technology is far more than just applications and Web. Integrated circuits, embedded computers, digital information transmission, storage and analysis; these are the basis of much of the technological innovation of the last fifty years. We have near-instantaneous international banking, securities markets, GPS, computers embedded in our cars making them more efficient and safer, wireless digital telephony, weather and climate modeling... hell, computers made it possible to model and test nuclear bombs without having to actually set them off, ending the era in which literally hundreds of nukes were set off worldwide. We have high definition digital television, we have countless advances in the medical and biotechnology field made possible by sophisticated computerized testing and data anlaysis... we live in a digital technology era that touches every aspect of our lives, from the food we eat to the jobs we perform to our physical and mental safety and wellbeing. People are living longer, safer, healthier lives, surrounded by more and better entertainment, absolutely revolutionary access to information and learning, enjoying the fruits of a more modern society. All of that comes from the digital information technology that was spawned and has grown with Silicon Valley at its center. Of course every single one of the things I mentioned were also dependent on innovators and workers from all over the world. Silicon Valley does not and could not exist in a vacuum, and it cannot claim sole credit for any of it. But hell yes this particular realm of invention and technology is more important than the automotive advances made in Detroit or the new energy technology coming out of Houston. I'm surprised anyone would honestly think otherwise. The invention and development of semiconductors, word processing, the personal computer, the relational database, object oriented programming. Berkeley Labs, Lawrence LIvermore Labs, IBM's pure research done throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties, Stanford, NASA Ames. Without in any way discounting how critically important automotive technology is to the way we live, I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to claim that no single region on Earth has so radically altered the course of the human civilization during the second half of the 20th century through technological innovation and development. Trabisnikof posted:So now your admitting that Silicon Valley isn't more important to economic wellbeing and standard of living in America than any other center of innovation (such as the myriad listed in this thread)? I don't know what exactly would convince you. Maybe pointing out that innovations here made possible all of the advanced medical technology used to keep people alive today? Without computers, you could not have MRI machines, CT scans, rapid gene sequencing, digital x-rays, or many of the countless drugs that improve and extend our lives? Countless major advances in the medical field depend on large-scale data analysis, which itself depends on relational databases, which are an invention of Silicon Valley. It's absurd, I mean, here we are having an argument on the Internet using personal computers! We couldn't even be having this conversation without the advances borne of Silicon Valley enterprise. quote:I'm not arguing that Silicon Valley (and the entire Bay Area, or does Twitter and Yelp not count as Silicon Valley) Yeah we're really talking about the whole Bay Area. When people say "Silicon Valley" they are sometimes referring to the very specific geographical area of the lower Peninsula; but I think more commonly, they're talking about the network of schools and companies that make up the center of technology innovation here, which has long since sprawled outward beyond the boundaries of Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Santa Clara, and San Jose. Certainly it'd be weird as hell to talk about innovation coming from Silicon Valley, but exclude Berkeley, Lawrence, or San Francisco. quote:Tech companies should get as much scrutiny as any other industry and just because "fail often" is a successful strategy doesn't mean ethics get to go out the window. Just because you're an innovator doesn't mean your fiduciary duties disappear. I feel a little annoyed to point out again, and I'm not the only one pointing this out: nobody in this thread has argued otherwise. It is absolutely fair and necessary that companies working in high technology deserve just as much, if not more, careful and critical scrutiny as any other corporation or institution. More, in some cases, because of the risks and dangers associated with these companies. Google's actions, for example, have a direct impact on the freedom and safety of Chinese citizens, and they very rightly caught flack a few years ago for cooperating with the Chinese government with their efforts to censor and control the Internet in China. Google also operates vehicles that literally drive around photographing everything, and then putting those photos online. There's clearly ethical concerns with that. And, if you use any of Google's online software (gmail, google docs, etc.) they are using your content (the bodies of your emails, for example) to target advertising at you. They're aggregating information about your searches, the documents you use, how often you click on certain links, how long you linger on certain pages, all to better target you with ads; and that information they've gathered provides an opportunity for the government to surreptitiously surveil people without their knowledge or consent. The only thing stopping them is regulatory power, and we've been lax at forcing our government to make use of that regulatory power to curb activities by the FBI and NSA. Companies like Google, AT&T, Verizon, etc., due to the personal information they possess, have a bigger responsibility to treat that information carefully. It's a major ethical issue, and I don't think we should let Google slide just because they're a special Silicon Valley company that creates great high-paying jobs, encourages their employees to use shared transportation, and have a super-useful search engine. So I really don't know where you're getting the idea that anyone in this thread is giving the likes of Google a pass. All I've personally argued is that it's unfair to tar the whole industry because you read about a couple of really lovely startups doing really lovely things. quote:Sure Silicon Valley has had impact, and its impact will grow significantly but to argue that its been a prime mover since 1954 really ignores both the history of Silicon Valley and also the history of technology. We have begun to assume that the only high-tech is digital, but the industries that feed, power, and supply us have made enormous strides since 1954 while the impact of Silicon Valley's innovations is just beginning to be felt. Ask me again in 20-30 years, and I'll probably agree with the premise. Of course they have, and of course we all owe a lot to those other industries. But most of those other industries are making use of Silicon Valley's technology in order to enable those same advances. The agricultural revolution of the last thirty or forty years is being driven by advances in genetic engineering (impossible without computers), weather and climate prediction and modeling (impossible without computers), improvement in the transportation networks (made possible by computerized data analysis), and so forth. Our oil and gas refineries are more efficient, we're able to explore offshore sources of fossil fuels, we've developed alternate energy sources such as wind and solar, we have vastly safer nuclear power plants, all due to the labor and effort of people all over the world. But all of those efforts were enabled and facilitated by the technology from Silicon Valley. I think the resistance to this statement is entirely due to it being perceived as smug. Look, I may live here, and for the last 15 years I've worked in the software industry, but I didn't make all this happen. I don't get to take credit for it. I hope I would make the same arguments even if I was born and raised somewhere else. I don't think it detracts from the work of countless millions of people all over the world, to point out just how much SV and the things that have flown out of it have shaped our modern world. As an aside, I don't particularly want to wade into the argument about "cars: good or bad?" but: Kobayashi posted:I don't see why we couldn't have a similar level of mobility and productivity without the automobile. Perhaps we'd have denser population centers and a better, national public transportation system. Regardless, I don't deny that the automobile is in many ways responsible for modern life. I'm just trying to point out that they have created equally large problems. And - to try to tie this back to California politics - refusing to acknowledge the problems with our car-oriented culture is the same kind of techno-utopian thinking that is everywhere in Silicon Valley. More CO2 is put into the atmosphere by oil, coal, and natural gas burning power plants, than cars. That doesn't mean that cars aren't terrible for the environment, so I mostly agree with you on that. But I don't think most people in SV "refuse to acknowledge the problems with our car-oriented culture", and I haven't seen much techno-utopian thinking in this thread. I am personally trying to show that SV technology has and will continue to have a profound impact on virtually every aspect of our lives, but I wouldn't characterize it as utopian at all, and I'd absolutely agree that this (and hell, most other) technological advances of the past ten thousand years have always had drawbacks as well as advantages. Recall the hard lesson learned by Alfred Nobel. His endowment for the Nobel Prize was made in no small part out of his personal guilt at helping to invent a horrifying new technology of war. Silicon Valley is not special in this respect. It always behooves us to look at the implications of the next wave of innovations before we implement them, but throughout history, we hardly ever have actually managed to do that. Whether it's the use of new chemicals on our food (DDT), new drugs (Thalidomide), new farming techniques (the dust bowl), new products (lead paint), better transportation technologies (the Titanic), new socio-political theories (the communist revolution), new fundamental understandings of our universe (the atomic bomb and nuclear power), new fishing techniques (massive global overfishing), new materials (plastics, and the global garbage crisis they've brought on), the list goes on and on. The temptation to realize the incredible potentials for new innovations almost always prove too tempting to our species for us to take sufficient precautions and be careful enough to avoid the harmful side-effects. Just as I think it's unfair to tar all of Silicon Valley because of Google's privacy violations or a startup that steals public parking spots, I think it's unreasonable to claim that software companies have a special burden to be cautious above and beyond the burden of every company and individual who implements a new technology to be cautious. If we're going to point fingers at Google, we have to point the same fingers at the inventors and implementers of fracking in the energy industry, of the companies designing and building remote-controlled military drones, of the countless biotech companies inventing and releasing new drugs, and the car companies implementing drive-by-wire. Everyone that makes a product has a responsibility to make those products safe, not only for the direct consumer, but for society in general.
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Jul 13, 2014 21:08
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Woooooo Tim Draper got enough signatures to get his 6-state plan on the ballot!  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/07/15/us-usa-california-breakup-idUSKBN0FK03P20140715 quote:Salazar said Monday that the campaign had gathered more than the roughly 808,000 signatures needed to place the measure on the November, 2016 ballot. Draper and other supporters plan to file the signatures with California Secretary of State Debra Bowen on Tuesday.
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Jul 15, 2014 06:35
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Hog Obituary posted:Woooooo Tim Draper got enough signatures to get his 6-state plan on the ballot! Draper is quite the horrible tech industry stereotype loon, he also has lots of hilarious shell game projections like the for profit Draper University in San Mateo.
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Jul 15, 2014 06:40
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Hog Obituary posted:Woooooo Tim Draper got enough signatures to get his 6-state plan on the ballot! Interesting because I thought the deadline for the Secretary of State to approve ballot measures was already past (per the California Report two weeks back or so. They even mentioned the measure as one of the high profile ones moving to 2016, along with marijuana legalization of course.) Ballotpedia still doesn't list it as approved for example. EDIT: I see, it IS for 2016. So that'll be sitting there for a while. Should make for a fun 2016 ballot though. ComradeCosmobot fucked around with this message at 08:17 on Jul 15, 2014 |
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Jul 15, 2014 08:12
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Hog Obituary posted:Woooooo Tim Draper got enough signatures to get his 6-state plan on the ballot! Ahahaha. I feel like maybe it DOES actually have a little more than a snowball's chance in hell of passing the referendum process if they can get a populist wave of support, though that's clearly as far as it could possibly get in real life. So anyway, does this mean we can play fantasy breakup for a while? That's always a fun distraction. Unfortunately their site looks like it's in a redirect loop at the moment, so I can't read their pitch on why they grouped the counties the way they did, but if they really felt the need to split southern California in two, assuming we have to stick with county boundaries, I would think it would make more sense to go with north/south, with just San Diego and Imperial as one state, and the rest as another? Camp Pendleton certainly gives us some physical distance to make things feel farther apart. More than the divide between, say, Pomona and Ontario or La Habra and Whittier. Those are all just the same (horrible) places.
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Jul 15, 2014 11:52
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Here's a really good piece about the sycophancy in the tech media: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/kara-swisher-silicon-valleys-most-powerful-snoop.html quote:TechCrunch “is just a cheerleader,” she said, and “a lot of tech media is sort of in the pockets of the people we cover … We’re inviting them to our parties. We might be dating some of them. We are right in the middle, in the thick, of the tech industry.” (Tsotsis dates a partner at General Catalyst, a venture-capital firm.)
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Jul 15, 2014 21:09
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Trabisnikof posted:Here's a really good piece about the sycophancy in the tech media: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/kara-swisher-silicon-valleys-most-powerful-snoop.html Even HBO's excellent Silicon Valley got a butthurt reaction from tech gods like Elon Musk since it had the gall to parody and mock the lofty aspirations of the california tech industry. A industry that pretty much pretends to follow some sort of noble liberating "let's change the world" crusade when it's all about hoping to cash out from a juicy buyout google deal or good stock IPO. Basically a vast circlejerk culture similar to the video game industry.
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Jul 15, 2014 23:55
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Trabisnikof posted:Here's a really good piece about the sycophancy in the tech media: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/kara-swisher-silicon-valleys-most-powerful-snoop.html People think of Google very disturbingly on TechCrunch it is unreadable trash.
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Jul 15, 2014 23:57
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etalian posted:Even HBO's excellent Silicon Valley got a butthurt reaction from tech gods like Elon Musk since it had the gall to parody and mock the lofty aspirations of the california tech industry. I wouldn't put Elon Musk in the same category as the makers of the "Yo" app. The man is doing a ton of good stuff for society and he doesn't seem to care about his own wealth.
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Jul 16, 2014 02:42
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enraged_camel posted:I wouldn't put Elon Musk in the same category as the makers of the "Yo" app. The man is doing a ton of good stuff for society and he doesn't seem to care about his own wealth. I saw this linked by a friend, although it lacks credibility given the site's affiliation with the likes of Townhall.
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Jul 16, 2014 02:47
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Jerry Manderbilt posted:I saw this linked by a friend, although it lacks credibility given the site's affiliation with the likes of Townhall. I mean, its true that's how SolarCity works. They are effectively working on the homeowner's behalf. It would be dumb if I had to pay the installer myself then sell the installed panels to SolarCity just to get the rebate. Nonsense posted:People think of Google very disturbingly on TechCrunch it is unreadable trash. That quote was from TechCrunch's own editor, so yes its pretty trashy. But they also have power and sway (e.g. Fox News).
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Jul 16, 2014 03:18
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etalian posted:Even HBO's excellent Silicon Valley got a butthurt reaction from tech gods like Elon Musk since it had the gall to parody and mock the lofty aspirations of the california tech industry. So would that make EA the Google of video games?
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Jul 16, 2014 05:18
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Forceholy posted:So would that make EA the Google of video games? No, that's Activision. EA is the Yahoo of video games.
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Jul 16, 2014 07:25
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Leperflesh posted:But hell yes this particular realm of invention and technology is more important than the automotive advances made in Detroit or the new energy technology coming out of Houston. Really? The innovation coming from your electrically powered invention is more important than the innovations in producing electricity? The mind boggles at your ego.
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Jul 16, 2014 12:05
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My Q-Face posted:Really? The innovation coming from your electrically powered invention is more important than the innovations in producing electricity? The mind boggles at your ego. And remember, if it uses or contains a computer Silicon Valley gets credit for it. Because the computer was invented in Silicon Valley. Edit: I realized people in this thread actually think the computer was invented in Silicon Valley, I'll give you a hint: neither Intel nor Apple (nor even HP) invented the computer. Trabisnikof fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 17:01
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Rand Paul + Silicon Valley? I'm actually curious about this because there seems to be enough ideological similarities: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/07/rand-pauls-silicon-valley-charm-offensive.html quote:It's friends like Parker and Zuckerberg who explain why Paul now routinely receives what Fortune called a "hero's welcome" when he comes to Silicon Valley. Next weekend, Paul will get to make his case yet again as the keynote speaker at Reboot, a San Francisco conference put on by a group called Lincoln Labs, which self-defines as "techies and politicos who believe in promoting liberty with technology." He'll likely say a version of what he's said before: that Silicon Valley's innovative potential can be best unlocked in an environment with minimal government intrusion in the forms of surveillance, corporate taxes, and regulation. “I see almost unlimited potential for us in Silicon Valley,” Paul has said, with "us" meaning libertarians.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:06
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My Q-Face posted:Really? The innovation coming from your electrically powered invention is more important than the innovations in producing electricity? The mind boggles at your ego. Trabisnikof posted:And remember, if it uses or contains a computer Silicon Valley gets credit for it. Because the computer was invented in Silicon Valley. Leperflesh posted:Of course every single one of the things I mentioned were also dependent on innovators and workers from all over the world. Silicon Valley does not and could not exist in a vacuum, and it cannot claim sole credit for any of it. I never claimed SV invented the computer. But anything in the world that is running a modern computer is using SV-created technology, absolutely.
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Jul 16, 2014 19:29
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Leperflesh posted:I never claimed SV invented the computer. But anything in the world that is running a modern computer is using SV-created technology, absolutely. And Dallas-created technology, and New York created technology, and [urban area] created technology.
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Jul 16, 2014 19:33
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I wouldn't be surprised if Rand Paul could make some inroads in Silicon Valley considering there are plenty of shithead engineers there who think that his dad was a good guy.
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Jul 16, 2014 19:39
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Draper is a grade A poo poo head, no argument there. But can we please stop painting everyone who lives/works in SV as a lolbertarian VC investor? That's no more true than everyone in Houston is an oil baron, or everyone in Detroit is an auto exec. Yes most of the billionaires and CEOs here suck, just as they do everywhere else. Most of SV, including most of the rank and file at the tech companies, are what D&D derisively refer to as 'center left'. Even the engineers. Check opensecrets.org and look up donations by employer. Actual data instead of lovely stereotyping; imagine that.
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Jul 16, 2014 19:54
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That's true, but the rank and file aren't bankrolling insane bullshit ballot initiatives and horrible "disruptive" startups.
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Jul 16, 2014 19:59
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Family Values posted:But can we please stop painting everyone who lives/works in SV as a lolbertarian VC investor? Absolutely no one here is doing that. I don't know how claiming that there are some libertarian engineers in SV means you're painting everyone as libertarian. So sensitive. "Could make some inroads" != "everyone who lives/works".
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Jul 16, 2014 20:06
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computer parts posted:And Dallas-created technology, and New York created technology, and [urban area] created technology. I feel like I addressed this point specifically and at length. It does not discredit innovators and creators all over the world to point out that one particular region has the highest density and acts as the central hub in a particular field. You are doing no different than pointing out that there are cars manufactured all over the country and world as a way of somehow arguing that Detroit isn't or hasn't been the central hub for American carmaking. Even though the automobile wasn't even invented in America!
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Jul 16, 2014 20:34
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Family Values posted:Draper is a grade A poo poo head, no argument there. But can we please stop painting everyone who lives/works in SV as a lolbertarian VC investor? That's no more true than everyone in Houston is an oil baron, or everyone in Detroit is an auto exec. Yes most of the billionaires and CEOs here suck, just as they do everywhere else. Silicon Valley is full of loving awful rich people, sorry people not from Silicon Valley might paint a good portion of the lovely rich people who live there as being lovely.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:36
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Family Values posted:Draper is a grade A poo poo head, no argument there. But can we please stop painting everyone who lives/works in SV as a lolbertarian VC investor? That's no more true than everyone in Houston is an oil baron, or everyone in Detroit is an auto exec. Yes most of the billionaires and CEOs here suck, just as they do everywhere else. Ask those poor, beleaguered rank and file about their economic views. There's plenty of "mah taxes are too damned high goddamn government bureaucracy" sentiment at the individual contributor level too. Their revulsion at GOP hate-mongering may outweigh their lolbertarian economics at the ballot box, sure, but that doesn't preclude their regressive economic views from contributing to the poisonous atmosphere developing in
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Jul 16, 2014 20:54
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Family Values posted:But can we please stop painting everyone who lives/works in SV as a lolbertarian VC investor? That's no more true than everyone in Houston is an oil baron, or everyone in Detroit is an auto exec. Yes most of the billionaires and CEOs here suck, just as they do everywhere else. Sure, so long as we can also stop referring to software developers as engineers. It was an issue awhile back in Texas that the software industry tried to fight: quote:Rigsbee said the high-tech problem mostly involves computer programmers whom the industry likes to call computer engineers. Of course, this attempt at loosening failed handily because the title actually means something beyond "uses a computer" and now has some pretty serious requirements in order to qualify to call yourself such, due to the impact on public safety and criminal liability it imposes. The title encroachment in California is even more widespread, and almost certainly for the same marketing reasons while misusing both the term and title. So that should be pretty funny to watch get fought when the California engineering board finally has enough and tightens enforcement. Right now "software engineers" are a pretty big laughingstock in the real engineering field; I'm thinking it won't be too much longer myself. H.P. Hovercraft fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 21:07
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Kobayashi posted:"mah taxes are too damned high goddamn government bureaucracy" H.P. Hovercraft posted:Sure, so long as we can also stop referring to software developers as engineers.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:13
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Cicero posted:This is a weird complaint to have and just sounds like sour grapes from 'real engineers' who don't like the level of hype and attention the software industry has gotten in recent years. No. Engineer is a legal title in most jurisdictions that means you've taken multiple exams and worked under another Professional Engineer for a number of years. Being a Professional Engineer means you can approve plans within your scope and are legally liable for those plans you approve with your seal. There is a PE for software, but few "software engineers" actually have done the work to have the legal title.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:27
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Cicero posted:This is a weird complaint to have and just sounds like sour grapes from 'real engineers' who don't like the level of hype and attention the software industry has gotten in recent years. Yes, appropriating a legally protected term with stringent educational and lifetime licensure requirements strongly responsible for public safety sure is a weird complaint and probably just jealousy directed at these lauded code ninjas. Just like all those jealous physicians whining about holistic doctors appropriating the term. Just roll with it doctors, naturopathy is the new hype!
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Jul 16, 2014 21:30
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Trabisnikof posted:No. Engineer is a legal title in most jurisdictions that means you've taken multiple exams and worked under another Professional Engineer for a number of years. Being a Professional Engineer means you can approve plans within your scope and are legally liable for those plans you approve with your seal. There is a PE for software, but few "software engineers" actually have done the work to have the legal title. Care to propose a reasonable title for someone who writes software for a living?
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Jul 16, 2014 21:32
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VendoViper posted:Care to propose a reasonable title for someone who writes software for a living? Computer janitor.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:32
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VendoViper posted:Care to propose a reasonable title for someone who writes software for a living? Programmer? Software Developer? Code Ninja?
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Jul 16, 2014 21:37
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VendoViper posted:Care to propose a reasonable title for someone who writes software for a living? Code jockey
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Jul 16, 2014 21:38
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| # ? May 9, 2024 21:46 |
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VendoViper posted:Care to propose a reasonable title for someone who writes software for a living? They fought the term "programmer" in Texas because: "the industry holds out its products as having been 'engineered.' And there is a belief that the computer companies are in a better position to win contracts if they can say they have 150 engineers on staff instead of 150 programmers." I'd imagine they'd have the same issue with "software developer" because everyone likes how engineer sounds. Reminder that the term has meaning because real engineers are legally liable for all of their work, much like physicians.
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Jul 16, 2014 21:38
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