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Thread: Gamma Quadra attitudes towards money

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    Default Gamma Quadra attitudes towards money

    I'm going to borrow/modify some questions from a recent topic over in Alpha, because I'm curious to see how our types relate when it comes to financial decisions...

    1. How do you spend money? (In general, i.e. freely, thriftily, etc.)

    2. How do your spending habits compare to your parents/family/friends?

    3. Do you lend money to others? If so, when someone owes you and doesn't willingly repay, how do you respond?

    4. How do you earn money?

    5. Would you rather work at a decent paying job where you know that you'll get a paycheck every 2 weeks, but will never find challenging or enjoyable - or - give up the steady income and security to risk starting your own business, with much better enjoyment and higher income possible, but not guaranteed?

    5. Do you desire getting rich and how do you plan to do so?

    6. If someone donated $1M to you today, what would you do with it?

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    Default Re: Gamma Financials

    OK in answer to my own post...

    1. How do you spend money? (In general, i.e. freely, thriftily, etc.)
    I spend freely on others, such as my wife, friends, & family, but I tend to be thrifty spending on myself.

    2. How do your spending habits compare to your parents/family/friends?
    I spend alot compared to my family. I was making pretty good money at a young age, and since I grew up pretty poor, I liked being able to buy what I wanted to once I could afford it. Friends vary, pretty much depending on their finances. I pick up the tab regularly, moreso when it's with someone else who can afford it, less when it's someone who it would probably help, just because I don't like coming across as if I'm trying to give charity (had some comments on this made in the past, so I've tightened up there).

    3. Do you lend money to others? If so, when someone owes you and doesn't willingly repay, how do you respond?
    Depending on the amounts, I will lend to others, and rarely try to enforce repayment if it's what I consider trivial (i.e. someone 'borrows' $10 to cover their tip, etc.). My wife says this has people taking advantage of me, but sometimes I'd rather avoid making them feel uncomfortable via a confrontation, and it doesn't hurt my pocketbook. I've had to pursue repayment on some actual loans though, and always get it when I do.

    4. How do you earn money?
    I work a day job as an IT professional in a big company, and a side job as an IT consultant for small companies.

    5. Would you rather work at a decent paying job where you know that you'll get a paycheck every 2 weeks, but will never find challenging or enjoyable - or - give up the steady income and security to risk starting your own business, with much better enjoyment and higher income possible, but not guaranteed?
    I would rather do the latter, I don't like seeing someone stuck in a job they consider trivial when they have the potential to do better. Currently I'm doing the former, and will very soon be at the crossroads where I'll be forced to make the big leap towards the latter.

    6. Do you desire getting rich and how do you plan to do so?
    I like to think that this isn't a big motivating factor for me, but I do desire being able to see more financial security for my family. Half of the world's 'rich' people were born that way, the majority of the other half are business owners, so that's the road I'm taking.

    7. If someone donated $1M to you today, what would you do with it?
    Use it to grow my business, and pay off my parent's debt so they could retire.

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    Default Re: Gamma Financials

    dfgfd

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    Default Re: Gamma Financials

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130

    5. Would you rather work at a decent paying job where you know that you'll get a paycheck every 2 weeks, but will never find challenging or enjoyable - or - give up the steady income and security to risk starting your own business, with much better enjoyment and higher income possible, but not guaranteed?
    I feel a need to answer this one...

    I think it's possible to combine these. Basically what I'm doing in life is I'm working for a big organization that offers a steady income but I'm refusing to accept company policy in the issues that I find useless. Basically I'm creating my own organization within the larger organization.
    All people and all organizations respect results. I just have to make sure my results overweigh the number of toes I'm stepping on and egos I'm deflating.

    My first long-term job was as a junior research assistant in a research lab. I basically took over the group from the ENTP boss and tripled the output of the lab. He did finally give me my notice after 2 yrs but by then the other seniors in the lab were asking me for leadership advice and after I left I kept getting calls requesting me to come back. During the time I did huge amounts of work and the pay was neglible but I had fun and got lots of important experience.

    "There's more than one way to build a fortress" -Buronson
    First eliminate every possible source of error. Thence success is inevitable.

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    Default Re: Gamma Financials

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130
    I'm going to borrow/modify some questions from a recent topic over in Alpha, because I'm curious to see how our types relate when it comes to financial decisions...

    1. How do you spend money? (In general, i.e. freely, thriftily, etc.)
    Well, this past Wednesday, I was unusually free with the money, but only because of the spiffy keen bargain. In my area, there is a bargain outlet called "Ollie's Bargain Outlet", that boasts of high markdown prices on their merchandise. I found a series of VB.NET and C++ and C# (mostly VB.NET, with a total of around 7 I bought and an unknown number (around like 20 or so) that I passed over because they were too technical for my current understanding of VB (darm you Cone! Your superior coding skills made me realize how n00bish I really am when it comes to technical aspects of VB. However, with these books, I shall pwn you!!!!!!!). You can only read so many whitepaper books before your realize that you have much more to learn (they covered things simple like migrating 6 to .NET and upwards to building your own website entirely with VB Script, and beyond (I forgot the hardest thing, but the chapter for that covered half the book)). However, I have the official VB.NET instruction manual, the "Securing your VB.NET programs" manual, the "Solutions to 30 .NET Common Problems", "The Official VB 6 Study Guide for Getting your VB6 Master's" (good deal there), "VB6 Desktop Applications", and finally, something Mr. Cone can look at, the "Practical Standards for VB.NET" ( YOU MUST PROVIDE AMPLE WHITE SPACE!!!!!! that is right in the book sir). If you wish, you may ask ahead to see the books, but keep in mind that for the next 2 weeks, my father shall be home, so I can't even speak on the phone to my human friend :'(, such are his rather repressive, though good-intentions are meant). Back to the original story...

    I got all these books at 8 usd a piece, roughly, for some were 6 and one was 10. Because of such a deal, I bought as many books as I had brought money. I originally meant to spead around 20-30 usd, but ended up spending over 70! Ordinarily, I am cheap when it comes to buying things, but since I had the money, and these are college-level books for 8 usd, I'd say it was worth it.

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130
    2. How do your spending habits compare to your parents/family/friends?
    On par.

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130
    3. Do you lend money to others? If so, when someone owes you and doesn't willingly repay, how do you respond?
    No, I am the one who borrows, being broke :'(. If I do lend, I usually expect payment as soon as possible, or within 2 weeks.

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130
    4. How do you earn money?
    I work as an ameteur programmer and IT technitian for a private website (www.protonic.com), but I don't get paid, so that doesn't count. So I suppose I'll meet Platt at Lonestar sometime in the future.

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130
    5. Would you rather work at a decent paying job where you know that you'll get a paycheck every 2 weeks, but will never find challenging or enjoyable - or - give up the steady income and security to risk starting your own business, with much better enjoyment and higher income possible, but not guaranteed?
    I'd really like to work with both options, but given the two, I'd work with the steady job I hated. I would despise being broke and unable to provide for my family. I'd start my own business when I saved up enough.

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130
    6. Do you desire getting rich and how do you plan to do so?
    Sure, why not, as it is the ultimate goal of the average human, for based on our very instincts, we are programmed to desire to be better than any one else in every way. Thus, greed is the ultimate human driver. I'd get rich by starting my own company writing code for a myriad uses, including my own OS based on whatever version of Linux is available in the future. To further my chances for success, I'd hire Mr. Cone, who if he decided to even write code in his time off would turn wildly rich and famous and at the very least benefit mankind in the modern age. Hopefully Mr. Cone would agree, elsewise, I calculate my chances of success to be roughly 40% at the best. Either that or I'd write some spiffy keen code that would revolutionize the world and license it to Microsoft just like the folkers did to every computing agency worldwide, and still continue to do so (read the EULAs very carefully, you'll be surprised that even after paying hundreds for software, you only license it, never owning it), so they'll see how their strategy works against them, bwahh ha ha!

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130
    7. If someone donated $1M to you today, what would you do with it?
    Start up my own business, and donate the rest to various charities and churches. Of course, I'd keep a bit for myself for security purposes (don't want to go broke any time soon), so I'd be donating only 3/4 of a million (lol).
    Mr. Cone's family scares me.

    If I only had a brain...

    Voted "most cryptic" and "Most likely to become his/her country's next president/prime minister"

    I'd like to thank all of you who voted for me. When I take office, I'll remember those who didn't vote for me...

    ENTJ

    Warning: can be long-winded when writing. Allow for a minimum of 20 minutes to read each individual post of mine

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    1. How do you spend money? (In general, i.e. freely, thriftily, etc.)

    Cautious. I don't like to waste. I'll research the things that I buy. I want the best value for money.

    2. How do your spending habits compare to your parents/family/friends?

    More conservative. I like to save and not buy something unless I really need it.

    3. Do you lend money to others? If so, when someone owes you and doesn't willingly repay, how do you respond?

    Not really. Small sums when someone hasn't got enough money when we're going out between friends - but then I just drop it and say it's a gift.

    4. How do you earn money?

    Not earning money yet.

    5. Would you rather work at a decent paying job where you know that you'll get a paycheck every 2 weeks, but will never find challenging or enjoyable - or - give up the steady income and security to risk starting your own business, with much better enjoyment and higher income possible, but not guaranteed?

    Depends on the business. If I feel I'm really competent I'll do it. For me a good alternative is beeing a consultant/expert - get the independance and some security.

    5. Do you desire getting rich and how do you plan to do so?

    Yes. I'll see how the market is and if I can find something that will sell in my domain of expertise...

    6. If someone donated $1M to you today, what would you do with it?

    Invest part of it and use the other part to start a small company. So I still have something left if something goes wrong with my project.
    ENTj - intuitive subtype - 8w9, sp/sx

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    Default Re: Gamma Financials

    dfg

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    Default Re: Gamma Financials

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve
    Quote Originally Posted by Earl60861
    (darm you Cone! Your superior coding skills made me realize how n00bish I really am when it comes to technical aspects of VB. However, with these books, I shall pwn you!!!!!!!).
    VB that's a painful language to code in
    You've clearly not used the last version of VB. I'm most familiar with VB6, but now I'm studying up on VB.NET, because VB6 will be obscelete in 2 years. BTW, VB = Visual Basic, not BASIC, or any other derivation. VB is very easy to use, but hopelessly tied to the form. Other than games, you can do a whole mess with it. Further, MS is trying to make OOP (object-oriented programming) the standard, starting with the Visual Studio.NET series. This standardizes VB, C++, C#, Javascript, and a few other languages under their own standard. Further, every one of them is now OO. Unfortunately for purists (myself included), this means that unless you plan to use the same compiler for the next infinate years, possibly loosing some of your compatablility (or all, since .NET starts with CLS, Common Language Specification, creating a new layer between the OS and the application. Without using CLS, newer systems won't be able to use your programs 100%). This means that overall, the quality of games will die down, since once the VS (Visual Studio) standards are common (say 15 years from now, and every computer will definately have at least XP or whatever Longhorn will be), it will be very difficult to leave the form. I haven't purchased (*cough* downloaded from a pirate site because I don't have the 900 usd required to get VS.NET *cough*) the VS.NET yet, so I'm just speculating from the 10 or so books I bought which all pretty much say the form will reign in code from now on. Hopefully MS will make a workaround or something, or private developers will continue to make formless compilers (which is going to be unlikely, since everyone must follow MS for some reason).

    Anyway, VB.NET looks to be very easy to use, and the entire interface is basically the same as VB6 (yay, pictures!). However, the coding is slightly different, since VB will automatically code 10% more code for you. However, there's problems with the relational operators and a lot of things "just work differently". Clearly I have a lot more reading to do, and have to work in the IDE (Integrated Development Environment) some before I can really speak VB.NET specifics and problems (I'm only on chapter 5 on the "Beginner's Guide", pitiful progress, since I've had the book for 2 days and had a total of 6 hours to read it (I read fairly fast)). However, overall, I wouldn't say VB is a horrible language to code in, it's just archaic. However, I do know of one developer who might change your mind. Karen Kentworthy, CEO and Chief Software Architect of Karenware, Inc. Her page is at www.karenware.com and has lots of good stuff to use. However, most of it is just small apps written in her spare time. However, the "Once a Day" is pretty good to use.

    Anyway, after I master VB.NET, I'm walking away from it. There is really little you can do in it. I'm really just reading up on it so I can start studying for college, which offers a degree in VB and beginner level languages. I'm moving on to C# and C++ after VB, since you can actually do things with them (Mr. Cone can testify to this, he devised a DLL (Dynamic Link Locator), that does almost nothing without his library of code! ROFL ^ 2. But seriously, he does very good work, and I hope to only be half the coding genius he is).
    Mr. Cone's family scares me.

    If I only had a brain...

    Voted "most cryptic" and "Most likely to become his/her country's next president/prime minister"

    I'd like to thank all of you who voted for me. When I take office, I'll remember those who didn't vote for me...

    ENTJ

    Warning: can be long-winded when writing. Allow for a minimum of 20 minutes to read each individual post of mine

  9. #9
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    dsdfd

  10. #10
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    Default Wouldn't it be nice?

    Wouldn't it be nice if VB would accept C operands? However, I myself consider both statements to be of equal ease-of-use. Remember that the entire BASIC language was devised to teach beginners how to code. Being that Billy Gates never did learn how to actually program (he could dabble, but he never actually wrote anything), so he stole BASIC, comercialized it, and called it "a professional language using common language". BASIC is anything but that. The very first GUI Windows (3.0) was written using VB. VB was written from BASIC and a program called Ruby, which was written in (I think) COBOL (not sure on that, say 40% sure, lol) to output graphics easier.

    VB was basically just created as a language for beginners (like Billy) to make basic code. VB has absolutely no real commercial value, for what can you do outside of the form? As I've said before, the form is both a curse and blessing to VB. N00bs can use it as a crutch to put in graphics and make their code look real. Professionals are forced to use it since without events, VB won't run too far (although in theory, if you tried hard enough, you could go formless, but when you do that, you're basically just using QBASIC, so why not use it? Not like you'd be displaying anything, since that is what the form is for).

    Also, a few retractions from my last post on VB. On further reading, it turns out that you can use .NET on older OSes, but as I did say, the funcitonality wouldn't be 100% (probably around 90%, which sounds good until the 10% turns out to be a key class). Also, MS is "attempting" to standardize VB.NET and the entire .NET series and submit it to a standardization organization. When that happens, anyone will be able to create an independant IDE for .NET (the compiler and linker are already available, but without the IDE to actually use them 100%, they're pretty useless unless you pirate the VS.NET). We're still looking for an independant VB6 IDE that is legal and as fully functional as VB6 from MS (all VB6 clones I've seen are weak compared to the actual thing, considering MS "forgot" to standardize a lot of features and put them up for free).

    Also, the syntax is fairly close, but different enough for a mention. The assignment operators from the C language set (=, +=, -=, etc) are part of VB.NET, and the error messages are standardized to the C model (you'll get system.<error> of <type> messages, which are standard across the VS.NET series). Also, a good bit of C functions/libraries are converted into VB code (there's the library that outputs time and date, which (if I remember correctly, left book in den and too lazy to get it) is called the Date() and Time() function (I should look it up, but I doubt that anyone would take my word over the included documentation with VB.NET which lists the exact function)).

    However, like I said, VB is archaic and I'm really only learning it to get a degree and fill up my summer between work sessions (yay the fun of a job!). http://<a href="http://www.theopenso...s.htm</a> Here is a site I found while trying to find a VB.NET clone legally (http://www.theopensourcery.com/vbclones.htm for those without hyperlink capability). So far, I haven't found one problem with the case sensativity problem (but then again, haven't written in it yet, but I'd assume with Option Strict On (combines Option Explicit with itself to create a self-correcting status for all variable and syntax mismatches (say you capitalize something that you dimensioned as lowercase, or you type FOR instead of For, it would/should automatically convert). Option Explicit On just does it for variables, Option Strict On by itself just does it for something else (stupid memory fading, must remember to upgrade brain (lol, if only it were that easy, I just came off a 2 hour study session with my VB.NET Introduction for Dummies book, and aside from one or two things I actually learned, such as the Return function for returning a function's value and exiting the function (you'd say something like Return <variable> and the function would store the variable in itself (instead of typing <function name> = <variable> : Exit Function) it was futile)). Of the clones I found (which for some stupid reason like to incorporate their own syntax that although 99% like VB from MS, will sometimes make porting impossible. However, given that, it seems that DarkBASIC stays as faithful to the standards as possible. If I had the money, I'd probably go with RealBASIC, but that one likes to use its own file types but has a converter (I'd rather keep my projects in the standard code, that way anyone not using RealBASIC could read the code from their IDE/compiler/whatever you want to call it since in the design phase, both are sometimes used interchangably). What I don't get is how the original creators of BASIC, John Kemeny and Tom Kurtz, would still create their own BASIC compilers and then charge that much for it. 500 usd for a compiler that hosts a large library (which is always good) and can be used for 5 licenses, but 500 usd? For that much, I could buy VS.NET standard edition and get 5 languages to code in.

    Lastly, with VB.NET, VB is increasingly becoming more C-like (which is always good for programmers who like compilers that are versitile), but is losing its ability to teach n00bs programming (to be honest, I pretty much paraphrased the first paragraph of that link page above, but I agree with it). However, since I'm moving to C anyway, might as well use the added bridge before VB burns (like its been said throughout this little segment on programming, VB is pretty useless for anything serious). Of course, what I really object to is how colleges are entirely passing on the BASIC language and shoving their freshmen computer science undergrads into Java and Perl. Although they clearly have the edge on functionality, they aren't meant for people who first encounter a programming language to learn. I think, if anything, the progress should be: BASIC, VB, Python, then C# and into the C family then Java and Perl last (why? Because they have a lot of portability issues and the syntax is fairly complicated (which if you read into it, states that I did pass over the Java Black Book whenever I went on that book buying bonanza because it cost 20 usd and the VB books cost 8 (wonder why... lol)). The reason is because BASIC is the oldest of the natural language programming languages. It should be taught as a prelude to other languages to show how things used to be done. A time when you didn't have the help of some stupid debugger to fix your code, you actually had to think and fix it yourself. Ahh, good times. VB can be taught as an introduction to OOP, because its pretty easy to use and uses BASIC syntax. However, if you don't like BASIC or VB, which many modern programmers don't, you can just skip to Python, but should show examples of BASIC and VB just to show how things used to be done, and how the modern programmer only thinks 50% of the time anymore during debugging. Python is an excellent language, since it combines the functionality of C and Perl with the ease-of-use of BASIC. Also, it should satisfy your desire to use C-like code, since a lot of code will look like C, but use keywords from natural language (not necessarily BASIC, since the keywords will actually tell you more than what the function does, instead of sometimes cryptic functions (like ABS, which means "Absolute Value Of...", but looks like Anti-Lock Braking System from a car to n00bs). Anyway, Python is an excellent introduction to C#, which I consider the easiest of the C languages. From there, the rest of the C family can be explored, branching finally into Java and its derivents (such as JavaScript). Perl is last, since it seems pretty hard (I've never worked in it, so no real back up on my reasoning).

    Sorry for the long post. As I wrote, I kept finding more websites with more information. Right now I found something in the newspaper about how computer jobs are being lost don't know if I'll put it in here later or not, but it looks intriguing. If I post again, I'll most likely make a reference to that article.

  11. #11

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    Default Article and explanation

    First off, the guest listed above is me, my cookie expired while I was writing it.

    Second, the article mentioned in it states that programming jobs are being lost to the foreigners. I find this ludacrous, as why should they ship the jobs overseas just to save some money? American programmers are the elite of the programmers. Of the standards made for programming and programs themselves, Americans published probably 4/5 of them. Further, look at the languages themselves. They're all using English as their base language. I have yet to find a language that is based on spanish. Every function and keyword will often be an acronym for English words. Since Americans logically "own" the programming world, what point is there to place their jobs elsewhere?

    The main reason: cost. They'll work for 1/3 of the standard American programmer's wages. However, I wonder, how supportive are they of their code? If you're working for basically minimum wage in America, you obviously wouldn't be making much money, even over in a depressed economy. Further, since they really aren't getting paid (IMHO), what loyalty would they have towards their code? I speculate that as soon as version 1.0 comes out, you won't see a revision for at least 6 months. Glaring security holes will become common and no one will be there to fix them. Although, I suppose it is possible to have faith in our foreign brothers and sisters. They did complete the college and have the experience, so it is possible that they'd be capable to program.

    Now, I wouldn't have such a problem if it was possible to interoperate with domestic and foreign offices, but most companies are shipping all their jobs overseas. Domestic programmers therefore lose their jobs and although you can program for your own company, you have 0 job security. Since you'd require people to donate money towards your software (since oftentimes, paid-for programs are pirated and you lose so much money it's not funny), you'd have to do it in your spare time. The only "solution" the article explains is to "learn a foreign language and hope that you can work as a cross-cultural manager". First off, no, I will not spend 2-5 years learning a language just so I can convert manuals to English. Second, a "cross-cultural manager" is basically just someone who will fly to a country, teach them how to use the compilers, then spend the rest of his/her career converting manuals and other things between languages. That is what I'd call a job from Canada. Not only would it be highly boring and degrading, but after you've served your very limited purpose, you'd be fired. The reason I say this is because after you taught your replacements (which is in itself a torture, having to train the people stealing your job), you probably won't even convert manuals, since they have professionals to do that already. If you wanted to stay within computer science, you'd be unable to.

    Thus, my solution is to become a IT technitian who specializes in on-site care. Not all problems can be fixed over the phone. You could then program in your spare time and post it online. Either that, or you could consult corporations on programming/IT needs. However, that job seems boring, since all you'd do is fix the problems that never should have existed. However, I shall stay the course and get my computer science degree. Who knows, maybe in 50 years, the foreigners will smarten up and unionize. They know that for the work they're doing, they should be paid more. However, they keep quiet because their economy is so weak. However, even during the Depression, we unionized our companies, realizing that we needed job security. After that, the jobs will shift back, just in time for me to retire wealthy and happy. Unfortunately, the chances of that are less than 5%, since timing never was with me.
    Mr. Cone's family scares me.

    If I only had a brain...

    Voted "most cryptic" and "Most likely to become his/her country's next president/prime minister"

    I'd like to thank all of you who voted for me. When I take office, I'll remember those who didn't vote for me...

    ENTJ

    Warning: can be long-winded when writing. Allow for a minimum of 20 minutes to read each individual post of mine

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    1. How do you spend money? (In general, i.e. freely, thriftily, etc.)
    Thriftily. Every now and then I spend a little, but I always feel guilty and a little less powerful when some cash slips out of my hands...

    2. How do your spending habits compare to your parents/family/friends?
    I don't know, I try not to go shopping with them. It pains me to see money being wasted. I don't go shopping, anyways, usually I order things off the net.

    3. Do you lend money to others? If so, when someone owes you and doesn't willingly repay, how do you respond?
    I loan money quite frequently. I charge interest at a penny per day/per dollar for friends. More for others (10 cents if I doubt their reliability). Really isn't that much interest, but considering they are usually broke...

    4. How do you earn money?
    I sell stuff on eBay. I am still studying, until then my cash comes from thrift store finds that I spend hours cleaning up (I hate cleaning things, waste of time). I do some web designing here and there, as well.

    5. Would you rather work at a decent paying job where you know that you'll get a paycheck every 2 weeks, but will never find challenging or enjoyable - or - give up the steady income and security to risk starting your own business, with much better enjoyment and higher income possible, but not guaranteed?
    I'd rather start my own business. I have an issue with authority.

    5. Do you desire getting rich and how do you plan to do so?
    No, although it would be convenient. I would prefer living by Ghandi's standards away from the pull of materialism, but I doubt I could live a day away from technology.

    6. If someone donated $1M to you today, what would you do with it?
    Well, if someone donated me that much money, it would probably not be a good idea to spend it, there would probably be strings attached. Who knows, maybe it is a mafia scheme... If there weren't any, I would probably buy myself an island away from humanity.

    As to the programming issue...
    They'll work for 1/3 of the standard American programmer's wages.
    Yes, I have had that problem with web-design as well. Especially Indian designers (not trying to seem racist, but they are great designers, and charge so little!), they will design an entire website for $100, and that is what I charge per page. However, many foreign web-designers cannot be web-developers as they do not have good language skills. (Some, do, however, and they usually realize the value of their services, and charge nearly the same rate as Americans.)

    Languages such as VB and C-based languages do have "english" based commands, however, they are much more mathematically oriented than web designing. For small programming jobs, foreign programmers are a threat - much cheaper, and more efficient. However, for the larger projects some companies prefer a person who they can easily converse with and know that they comprehend every last detail of their project. I only have limited VB and C++ skills, so I can't really put much of my opinion in on this one.

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    Default Foreigners

    Well, it is true that they will accept almost any pay for any task, so those of you non-programmers (the use of the word programming includes all aspects, such as web design, consults, debuggers, etc, so if you are a web designer, you are included in this. If you simply look at the pages/play the games/use the code in a non-programming way, you aren't a programmer, just a consumer, ) who doubt this, wait until your jobs are next (which I would be surprised if your jobs weren't taken already. Manufactoring and tech support have largely moved overseas already, and America has lost a good 40% of its total workforce already).

    Anyway, since I'm not a web dev, I can't really comment on your prices (which I'd assume are reasonable, since the last time I tried to make a website, I ended up about throwing the computer through the wall, but then again, you can't get far using free developers and free hosting). But, what I can say is that it was inevitable that computer-oriented jobs would leave . It is a good thing the fluent realize their worth, they deserve the pay after spending all that time learning both English and the coding engines. Yes, it is true that VB and C-based are very english based, because they were written by Americans (well, the one dialect of C was (I think) written by a Brit or Aussie). However, the mathmatical orientation of them isn't really that great. You still have to document your code (or else any future programmers will have difficulty understanding it), and a lot of the actual commands are English (especially VB). Thus, theoretically, foreign-made code would be almost inferior, since they would (theoretically now) only know enough English to read the commands. Thus, any future programmers would have almost no idea how to read their code, at least without starting from the beginning and knowing exactly what the final result should be (even then, it would be very difficult to debug a segment of code).

    There really is no such thing as a "small programming job", since all code needs updated. However, our contractual career makes all jobs technically small. Once its done, we're paid and they'll contract us again if there is a problem (knowing our luck, they'll expect us to fix it for free, even a major revision based on new parameters). You can still put in a good bit of input, since you do program. I really never saw the large outsourcing of programming jobs ever looming, simply because domesticated code is so dominant and the languages themselves were written by domestics for domestics. That being said, I don't know how much faith you can put in this next statement. You probably shouldn't worry that much about your career being taken, since it is largely English oriented the whole way through.

    View the source of the16types.info page (any page really). It is wonderous code. Just looking at it now, I can learn HTML really quickly from it. It is masterfully documented and whitespace and indentation throughout. For those non-programmers slogging through this topic segment, you can see what true programming should be, based on the source code (in IE, go to view, source. For those in FF (Firefox), go to View, Page Source). Furthered from it, those of you with C knowledge (basically, any real programmer, such as fairgeek, cone, and myself, possibly including Steve), and wants to learn HTML (or visa versa), note the myriad similarities (yay, the 30 minutes I spent actually reading that HTML website countles web devs have pointed me to was worth it!). As you can see, the majority of modern programming is all integrated and common. Thus, the reason for the scare about the foreigners. Once you know one language (especially one from the C family), you can easily pick up the rest. Thus, should the outsourcing continue, the majority (roughly 85%, since web dev-ing will be only possible by people fluent in English) of programming jobs will be outsourced. Amazing how one little sidestep in a conversation can lead to a conclusion that really should have been obvious. Another sidenote, FF is far superior to reading source, since it actually decided to comply with the latest standards in source reading (colorization of keywords, etc). Get FF at www.mozialla.org/products/firefox or www.getfirefox.com (just had to list that site to spread FF). Its open source and (as such) will not be fully outsourced (it is international, so no outsourcing possible, but still done, but these are full professionals, not people who went through a 2 week "training" cource then put to code).

    Bah, stupid sidenotes, I'll never finish this! A thing I remember from my time interning at www.protonic.com (a free tech support site), they listed a link to a magazine describing what the foreigners actually go through to get "certified". Knowing that I should, but cannot (since I finished my set there and didn't save the link), I'll send you to find it (I think the Times (one of the many) wrote it). Anyway, it listed how all the tech support (the focus of the article) did to get "qualified", was to simply sit through 2 hour training sessions each night for a month. Unfortuanately, they didn't actually learn anything, since they had a solid half-hour of "e-mail time" thanks to their hippie teacher constantly showing up late. Then the teacher declared another half-hour of "e-mail time" because he didn't check his. Thus, they lost half their training time each night (Monday-Friday, no weekends, so a total of 20 days, with supposidly 40 hours of training, but a real 20 hours instead). Thus, instead of learning how to actually fix things, their instructor decided to focus on the company mantra (motto, saying, etc that has nothing to do with the actual problem), which was something like "The problem you are stating is not caused by our program. Most likely, it is a hardware or software conflict causing the problem". From that, they were "trained" to order parts for the person, ones that were "found new" (in a junkyard), or (if they were of actual quality), "fell of a truck" (we all know what that means). Imagine getting a new monitor (full of micro-cracks and other stuff) to fix a display problem (just because the lines weren't big enough), or a "new" sound card because the application doesn't sound right (sound problems). If any real tech support was given, it would be because it was forwarded to a superior, who promptly would tell them to reformat their drive and reinstall the software (yay, the silver bullet!).

    This "quality" of service could just as easily reach the programming world. I'm not a racist, so rule that out (most of my online contacts are foreign, and no, not all from Canada and Britain, but from actually foreign countries (as in, non-English-language-dominated) countries like Pakistan, Israel, China, Russia, and South America/Central America, possibly more). This is an actual possibility, and before you wonder, yes I did highly object back when I interned (we had something similar to this on their mini-forum), and did post a good bit in other forums about these outsourcing problems. Luckily, I'm not alone. 99% of non-business Silicon Valley people object to outsourcing (of course, the CEO and CFO love it, but the rest hate it). Unfortunately, there is nothing we peons can really do, since the congressmen and women are also objecting to this, but making no progress. BushCo(TM) pretty much wants this for "diversity" and "ensuring that equal-opportunity is met" (BTW, I'm pretty pro-Bush until it comes to the economy and Social Security). Further, embargos and tariffs don't actually accomplish anything, and actually hurt the world economy. Maybe I'll move to India and pretend to not know English, just to get a job doing what I love. Either that or live in a boring world debugging the inevitable bugs of their code (since they probably wouldn't be able to themselves, with no documentation or actual knowledge of programming). Maybe web dev is for me, but I really don't care for it much, based on the fact that I'm not so good with visual layouts and other web necessities.

    PS, I probably wouldn't be so mad if I hadn't read that article, confirming my suspicions. If these were actually trained people, I could see the point. But without actual knowledge of the craft, it is like giving a child access to the kitchen in a restaurant and having him/her cook for your restaurant. If it doesn't kill your customers (a possibility), it will be of poor quality (inedible) until they practice (years later) (you'd go bankrupt over losing all your customers). I'd rather have a cordon bleu cook my meals than a 2 year old. Same with my code (the reference to a child = their lack of programming knowledge compared to a college grad with degree).
    Mr. Cone's family scares me.

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    I'd like to thank all of you who voted for me. When I take office, I'll remember those who didn't vote for me...

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    Default Re: Gamma Financials

    Quote Originally Posted by DSA4130
    1. How do you spend money? (In general, i.e. freely, thriftily, etc.)
    Thriftily, at leats it seems to be the case when I compare myself to other people my age. I never thought of myself as a person who can survive on little but I guess thats what I am when you compare me to others.

    2. How do your spending habits compare to your parents/family/friends?
    My family is thrifty like me, I guess thats where I picked up the habit. My friends always spend money, and do something to earn it, whereas I dont seem to do much of either.

    3. Do you lend money to others? If so, when someone owes you and doesn't willingly repay, how do you respond?
    Im neither a borrower nor a lender.

    4. How do you earn money?
    I dont, considering Im unemployed.

    5. Would you rather work at a decent paying job where you know that you'll get a paycheck every 2 weeks, but will never find challenging or enjoyable - or - give up the steady income and security to risk starting your own business, with much better enjoyment and higher income possible, but not guaranteed?
    The latter for two reasons.

    1. If you have a dream and dont accomplish it, all that energy you had stored up for your dream is gonna turn against you, in which case taking the "safe job" will not actually be so safe.

    2. If I dont enjoy myself, I cant do a job even for some money which I may need.

    5. Do you desire getting rich and how do you plan to do so?
    I desire to get rich, but I wont be unhappy if I dont. And taking into consideration that I have no plan to do so, Im not expecting to. As long as Im financially stable and can enjoy myself Im happy, I dont have to control everything.

    6. If someone donated $1M to you today, what would you do with it?
    I would buy everything I need to move over my current obstacles, Id buy a bunch of video games, a new PC and save the rest. :wink:


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    I swear, every Jewish banker is an INTp.

    1. How do you spend money? (In general, i.e. freely, thriftily, etc.)

    I am very physically undemanding and in no way materialistic, so I rarely spend much money on frivolities. However, I am in no way like my IxTj cousins, who hoard money. I usually spend money on informative books and the like, most often of which I buy on good ole' amazon.com. I usually don't have money in my pocket at any given time.

    2. How do your spending habits compare to your parents/family/friends?

    Much, much less. I even dislike it when my mother insists on buying me things (mostly clothes.) Now, my mother spends money very freely, but of course, she's an INFp.

    3. Do you lend money to others? If so, when someone owes you and doesn't willingly repay, how do you respond?

    I more or less give money to others and never expect it back. When people try to repay me, I usually refuse to take it. And when I expect repayment and don't get it, I get angry. I rarely force it, though.

    4. How do you earn money?

    Really, I don't need to, since I still live with my mother, and her idea is, "kids should live like kids, not adults." But I used to earn money as an accompanist for my church services.

    5. Would you rather work at a decent paying job where you know that you'll get a paycheck every 2 weeks, but will never find challenging or enjoyable - or - give up the steady income and security to risk starting your own business, with much better enjoyment and higher income possible, but not guaranteed?

    Definitely start my own business. There's no way in hell I could ever do something I don't enjoy.

    5. Do you desire getting rich and how do you plan to do so?

    I don't really desire much for money. But for being famous, sure.

    6. If someone donated $1M to you today, what would you do with it?

    Get rid of it as fast as I could. I would probably invest it in some sort of community project or organization, like for classical music or Socionics research. I'd ask around on what to spend it on.

    Quote Originally Posted by Cheerio
    As long as Im financially stable and can enjoy myself Im happy, I dont have to control everything.
    Good idea. I think INTps have a horrible problem with wanting to control absolutely everything.

    C++ is a great language. But Assembly is my personal favorite. :wink:


    Your INTp friend,

    Cone
    Binary or dichotomous systems, although regulated by a principle, are among the most artificial arrangements that have ever been invented. -- William Swainson, A Treatise on the Geography and Classification of Animals (1835)

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    Default C++ is a great language

    Quote Originally Posted by Cone
    C++ is a great language. But Assembly is my personal favorite. Wink
    Yes, C++ is a very good language. However, you are incorrect about one thing, Assembly technically isn't a language. It is a class of languages. Some nublet in l4y (perhaps it was secretly you, which would mean that I'd have pwnd you in RF 20 times by now) was trying to say the same thing. Assembly is a class of languages, despite the fact that there is no actual language set for it. Assembly works directly off of the processor's commands. It is the closest you can get to writing in machine code without knowing binary (you just have to know hex and oct instead). It changes from processor type to processor type, and often will change based on various settings for the computer, sometimes those which aren't even remotely related to the processor and the program. Assembly is the coder's best and worst friend. As I, the n00bish Earl, do not know hex and oct, I can't write in Assembly.

    Anyway, C++ is close enough to me. C and its varients are the closest a high-level language has ever gotten to Assembly (well, ForTran and COBOL were pretty close, but I've never coded in them). C and its crew force the programmer to account for everything, just like Assembler does (which is why your Assembler code probably failed, Mr. Cone (note for 5 months/years from now when you decide to give Assembly a good try and write a program in it)). However, I still like to code in VB, since I fear I'm turning into an OOP n00b. No worries, however, as OOP is practically replacing conventional programming. Even so, I'd like to break my habits of OOP, and get back to the "primal programming era". However, I don't set timelines for myself to master a language. However, I'd plan to get back to the "old skool of code" by the time I enter my Junior year of college, as around that time, CS crews learn the "Renaissance of Programming", either that or divert into specialization to study specific languages.

    We should make a programming thread. A large crew of Spymacers occacionally come by and post. We have a record 10 page post on "Java vs Python". Obviously Java won, despite the fact that the original author wanted J v P to be discussed for newbies to programming (something he even had to point out after 5 pages of "Java programming owns" over and over. After that, we discussed OOP and the like). Unfortunately, the 10 pages turned out to be mostly the same stuff, so the sys admin cut out a good bit of the stuff written (some of it actually had useful stuff, and great links). Anyway, there are plenty of programmers-oriented forums out there. Perhaps Mr. Cone, fairgeek, Steve, and myself could hop onto one.

    Anyway, pathetic attempts to learn more about programming by socially engineering some good people into volunteering their secrets to me, C++ is great. Unfortunately Microsoft turned it into OOP (and not in a good way) with Visual C++. I highly doubt the Borland (which turns out to be nothing more than Turbo C++ version 2.1, as Borland bought the company that makes the Turbo series) compiler will be shared to new programmers, which will lead to a form-oriented world. Video games will likely never be the same again as in 20 years, Visual C++ will be the only thing programmers would know of C++ .
    Mr. Cone's family scares me.

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    divine, too human WVBRY's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Cone
    I think INTps have a horrible problem with wanting to control absolutely everything.
    Not more than anyone else, as far as I can tell. Everyone wants to be in control all the time, it seems like the most basic human instinct to me. What I meant was that some people want to get rich primarily to control the external world, whereas Im more focuesed on controlling my personal world.


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    Assembly used to be the shit, but nowadays optimizations programmed into our c compilers are so incredible and processor specific(reorganizing code to optimize to the processor's instruction and data pipelines) only really really informed programmers are gonna be able to make something faster in assembly than in c, anything complex at least. In fact, a sizable program(probably around 1k) will run faster when written in c than when written in assembly. Personally, I'm lazy and like PHP/Mysql programming although 'Ruby on Rails' seems to be up and coming.

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    I think that's the difference between me and INTj programmers. They actually care about getting a result. I only care about controlling everything and making it super-efficient and super-organized. That's why I love good ole' low-level Assembly. But then again, I can be INTj-ish if need be.
    Binary or dichotomous systems, although regulated by a principle, are among the most artificial arrangements that have ever been invented. -- William Swainson, A Treatise on the Geography and Classification of Animals (1835)

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    Default If C >= Assembly Then : Efficiency > Redundancy

    The point of programming is primarily to obtain a result. Elsewise, why write the code? I assume that by saying "I only care about controlling everything and making it super-efficient and super-organized.", you mean after the program is finished and the code works.

    I do agree with you that a program is never actually finished. After your program is complete, you really should go back to revise, edit, and optomize your code. The SDLC (Systems Design Life Cycle, AKA the time it takes to create a program) is 50% planning (although most people keep that closer to 30%), 30% programming, and 20% revising/optimizing (although most people keep it to 20% programming and 50% revising/optimizing, since they never planned their program). Using that, it is logical to conclude that a program is never finished until after you revise/optimize it. That can take upwards of a year on some code.

    Anyway, the people that just throw out code as soon as it barely works are the script kiddies, people who don't truely know how to program. Coincidentally, most of these script kiddies end up working at Microsoft, since all MS cares about is results (Bill Gates = INTJ programmer?). These people really bring down the profession of programming. And with new hyper-OOP compilers (with extended IDEs and little more than drag-and-drop OOP forms) (case in point is the new Microsoft .NET Studio. The more I read about it, the more I despise how MS ruined programming with this new version), this is only likely to continue. Faced with the proposition of hyper-OOPing my programs or hard-coding them (and thus "falling behind" the programming world), it is very difficult to stay dedicated to the old style of (proper, hard-coding) programming.

    I don't know, perhaps one day I will learn Assembly, however not for a "while". Probably after I "gradiate" college with my BS (Bachelor of Science) in Computer Science, will I study Assembly (more than likely, I'll run into Assembly in one of my graduate classes). That could be a few (say 5-10) years, but by then, Assembly will be completely forgoten (it has already happened. On L4Y, no one knew what Assembly programming was, thus no one could explain why Agent-X could hack their server in almost no time (the L4Y server is as unsecure as can be)). Still, it is worth knowing.

    Ruby On Rails, a new form of the classic programming language, Ruby, is available at www.rubyonrails.org, and for download at http://download.rubyonrails.com/ . Ruby is available at http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/20020102.html . Ruby On Rails is an open-source framework for web applications, databases, etc. Presumably (since I've never used either one), it can be used to create desktop applications as well. Something to look into for the future. I may have to revise my "Recommended Language Learning Order for Programmers (RLLOP, pronounced "Erl-Lop" or "Earl Lop"), which (to date) consists of (in this order): QBASIC, Visual BASIC, any other BASIC sub-sets, Python, C#, C++, C, any other C varients, J#, Java, Perl, HTML, XML, COBOL, ForTran, Assembly, Machine Code (yes, it is there on purpose).

    Fairly nice order, from simplest and most informative to most difficult. The reason HTML and XML are listed so high is because I don't plan to be a web developer, so why put a priority on learning the languages? If I were to add Ruby and its varients, they would go after Perl, and before HTML (because Ruby ties in very closely with Perl).

    Back to the topic, C and its varients will stay for a long time. The newest varients, J# (an offshoot of Java, which is an offshoot of C), and C# (an offshoot of C++) are very easy to learn and fairly powerful. Furthered by the ever-increasing optimizations and library extensions, it is very difficult to say that Assembly is still superior to C. Also, Mr sys admin, I (personally) don't consider 1 KB to be that much. Even counting just the modules and classes alone (which is just the code, no forms or whatnot in the way), 1 KB won't go far in the professional world. I'd imagine that under an industry-level program (let us take UT07 (Unreal Tournement 2007) as an example. This program is nearly 2 GB big (compressed, with uncompressed of probably far more than 4 GB) and holds on 2 HD-DVDs). It is highly doubtful that Assembly could speed this up at all, for (being this is their 5 incarnation of the Unreal series) the programmers should have optimized the majority of the code. When released in fall 2006, this program will be the largest game ever created for a desktop), Assembly won't make much of a difference. Aside from my (rather extreme) example, when you get into normal industry-level programming (we'll take a 10 MB starter game, called Stellar Frontier, which is an offshoot of Netrek, the oldest networked/online game still around (been around since the late 60s), you have to count the time taken for the programmer to write it. Assembly is far more tedious to write in than C, so even with the worst processor optimizations (say, none, with possibly a few that hold it back), Assembly's SDLC will still be longer than C's (the SDLC is the primary way of determining a program's true value to the programmer).

    Just something to think about.
    Mr. Cone's family scares me.

    If I only had a brain...

    Voted "most cryptic" and "Most likely to become his/her country's next president/prime minister"

    I'd like to thank all of you who voted for me. When I take office, I'll remember those who didn't vote for me...

    ENTJ

    Warning: can be long-winded when writing. Allow for a minimum of 20 minutes to read each individual post of mine

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