You Cannot be a Programmer Without Understanding Computers

In The Perils of JavaSchools, Joel Spolsky pretty accurately describes the problems with a lot of programmers who are coming out of colleges today. Back in the mid to late 1980s when I was in college, C++ was brand new and Java didn't yet exist. Most classes still used Pascal, though C was becoming more and more popular. The thing is, our classes back then mostly taught concepts, not languages. I even had to take a hardware digital logic class. (Much fun!) The only classes I really remember are Assembler (IBM 370 assembler at that!), Data Structures (taught by Jeff Harris, who last I heard, went off to a very well paying job at Motorola after being let go (!) by a university that obviously didn't appreciate the tremendous value of his teaching), Systems Design, where we wrote a software coputer and then later an assembler and linker for it. Everything else was fun, but just entertainment. Those three classes are the ones where I learned stuff that became the foundation for everything I've done since then. The sad thing is now, none of those classes are even offered, much less required.

This is Certainly a First

A friend sent me a link Well, That Certainly Didn’t Take Long and told me, "read this article...and pretend like Limbaugh or Noonan wrote it. I'm in somewhat of a state of shock." I generally don't read columns from the likes of Maureen Dowd. As a matter of fact, I had to ask my friend who she is. His response was, "ultra-ultra-ultra lefty; Huffington crowd".

Well, that was certainly interesting. Now I'm in a state of shock. Happy, but still shocked. Some leftist acknowledgment that there's a lot of liberal agenda in the stimulus bill as is and that even some Democrats are getting disillusioned is very refreshing.

Libertarian Frustration

A friend pointed to me to an excellent article by John Hasnas, Associate Professor in the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University. In this short article, titled What It Feels Like To Be A Libertarian, Mr. Hasnas accuratly sums up the frustration felt by Libertarians, as they watch markets be manipulated by politicians who later declare that free markets don't work. The frustration that comes from watching "fixes" that make the problems worse.

Righteous Politicians

I'm already tired of the righteousness I'm perceiving from the Democrats in Congress. I'd like to remind them that they rode into office on the coattails of a man for whom people voted for not primarily for his policies. The reasons I believe many people voted for Barack Obama are, in order:

1. He's not George W. Bush.
2. Sarah Palin was perceived to not be qualified for a job she was not even running for. I'm still scratching my head over this one.
3. His race. I'm sorry to say this, but I really do think that for some voters at least, the color of his skin was more important than the content of his character. Hopefully someday Dr. King's dream will be achieved, but I don't believe it was this time.
4. His policies.

With Democratic policies in fourth place for a lot of people, I feel like the Democrats should be very careful. They need to stick to their bipartisan¹ promises. They need to do what is right for the country, not what rewards their pet issues.

I am still hopeful that Mr. Obama can guide his party to a higher standard, but I have my doubts, considering what he has to work with. Despite all of the Democratic complaints during the past eight years of the Bush administration, they seem to be willing to act in the same ways they complained about now that they are in power. I'm hoping for better, but not expecting it.

1) I hate the word bipartisan as it implies their is something inherently "right" about a bipolar system. I believe that our cyclical tit-for-tat approach to politics does far more harm than good.