Ask HN: How Did You Start Over? - <AUTHOR> Have you ever just said F@#%k it? ..Wiped the slate clean? Just dropped the mic..and walked away into a whole new uncharted life? *Career-wise that is.
Would love to hear your story/musings/wisdom.
thanks <comment><USER2> Moved from CO to BOS basically on a whim. Was stuck in a lower paying job and just felt like I needed to start over. After a business trip to BOS, I said f-it and started applying to jobs. Got one a couple months later, packed up everything I could take in my tiny sedan, and just left.

I stopped talked to 90% of my friends and only kept in touch with the important ones. Best choice of my life. Been here for a couple years and am making 5x what I was making in CO, am working in a challenging industry, learning new stuff every day, and get to work on leading tech. Most important, I get to network with inspiring and intelligent individuals, and have the freedom to do more than most.

Sometimes you just have to drop everything, put yourself way into the uncomfortable zone, and figure it out - especially if you're young.

</comment><comment><USER3> I moved form NYC to Seattle, attended a coding boot camp and moved from Shipping Director at a small eCommerce site and am now a Software Engineer at a Seattle area startup.

I didn't have much going on career wise and had been interested in attending a coding school. I was going to college in the evenings but at that rate it would have taken way longer than I wanted it to, to be able to change careers. I made the off hand remark to my brother that the school I wanted go to was in Seattle and that would make it difficult to go. He told about a friend of his in Seattle who let me stay at his place and I was off to the races from there.

I guess my advice would be it's not as hard as you would think to just move across the country and change jobs. I didn't have much tying me down however. I had a girlfriend (now wife) he was excited to move out of the city with me so that helped. No kids, no car, no house or anything like that so it was fairly easy to just pick up and go.

TL;DR - You're not as locked in to your current lifestyle as you think.

</comment><comment><USER4> I have done that more than once. I talked about it elsewhere and said this:

 _I have kind of had three dramatic career changes. I feel they all have gone really well, but I think most people think I am a basically a huge failure and total loser.

In high school, I was one of the top 3 students of my graduating class. I had the highest SAT score of my class. This helped get me named Star Student and won me a National Merit Scholarship. I was expected to have a very serious career. I had only two real goals: Get away from my home state and deal with my personal problems. I was aware my health was frail thus joining the Army was a no go, etc. I opted out of my scholarship, quit college, married some guy whose only dream was to be a soldier. I hid my unemployable status under the nifty title of homemaker for a lot of years. So, I successfully left the fast track for a position that would not kill me. That was career change one.

Finally getting a diagnosis for my condition helped empower me to leave my marriage. I had been going to college on and off. My goal was to trade in my homemaker title for the title of urban planner. As part of that effort, I got a certificate in GIS and applied to an internship with a national lab and ran a planning subforum on a statusy planning discussion board for a time. My resume had a high call back rate for getting me interviews but I kept flopping in the interview.

I ultimately ended up at an entry level job at a Fortune 500 company. That was career change two as I successfully left behind being a homemaker. Although the job was unrelated to all my career goals and training, it paid better than minimum wage and was oohed and aahed over by most folks with whom I made small talk. Just working at that company was a feather in my cap in the eyes of most locals. I might have stayed and climbed the corporate ladder, but I had dreams of getting healthy that conflicted with that path. This led to dramatic career change number three.

At some point, I quit that job in order to focus on getting well and work on developing an income stream that won't keep me sick. I do freelance writing and I am developing some web projects that generally suck less than they used to. It has been slow and frustrating and I am aggravated at how little I make, etc. But if you understand what I am up against -- and I do, even though most other people do not -- it is actually going swimmingly well and is basically wildly successful. But I really have a very hard time convincing others of that fact, so I hesitated to answer at all because how others see me is dramatically out of step with how I see myself. I still look to most people like a total fucking loser and there is nothing to be gained by arguing about it. So I mostly try to avoid arguing about it and try to just keep working on my goals in as focused a fashion as I can manage, given my health problems and other challenges.

Best of luck._

</comment><comment><USER5> Dreaming about it, yes.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> thank you guys for sharing.</comment>


MSN for Mountain Lion's Messages and iChat 6.0 - <AUTHOR> http://amccloud.com/post/17741781051/msn-messenger-ichat-messages-how-to

<comment><USER2> i tried it. it works! :)</comment>


Zuck, Bill Gates, Jack Dorsey In Short Film To Inspire Kids To Learn How To Code - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/26/zuck-bill-gates-jack-dorsey-code-org-film/ <comment> wes-exp Personally I think the world is drunk with "code fever". We are creatures of overreaction.

Not too long ago it was "no one learn to code! it's all going to be outsourced to India!"

Now, "I'm starting a non-profit to spread the gift of coding to children. Coding is our future".

Give me a f-ing break.

<comment><USER3> I'm still all for it. Coding is a lot more than just filling jobs. It opens the door to critical thinking, breaking down complex problems into simple ones, separating correlation and causality, and differentiating between data vs anecdotes. It's essentially applied STEM education, but with very practical, tangible outcomes in equipment that nearly everyone will have access to.

I can't think of a faster, more accessible, more entertaining way to grow these skills.

<comment><USER4> It is also a very affordable and quick way to "build stuff", which is one of the strongest ways for children/adolescents to get excited about their "work"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I think people are shifting away from the point of the video and that's fine, and I don't mean to be "that" guy, but it is important to realize what these accomplished programmers are trying to say through the video.

If you listen carefully, most of the interviewees are simply attesting to Steve Jobs' quote at the beginning: "Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer...because it teaches you how to think." The second part, the ability to think, is a skill that people must have AND use in their everyday life to be successful in whatever they do. Zuck, Gates, Dorsey, Houston, etc. are all encouraging people to learn to code for this reason, and because programming is an extremely empowering skill--not just in one field but in all...if you want it to be. The fact that programming can be used in all fields is why there is such a huge push for people to learn. It is a self and world-empowering tool that is simply being encouraged to be taught/learned by the incoming generation.

The current generation needs to realize that programming exists everywhere, just as we are taught that subjects like math, biology, chemistry, physics, and history are. There is a HUGE distinction between learning to code just for the sake of getting a job or improving the economy and learning to code because it can empower us to THINK and then DO. Not to be philosophical, but part of societies' problems has been always knowing what problems exist, but not actually doing anything to solve it--until now. Programming, more than anything, accelerates our ability to solve problems, little or big.

In a world where so many problems exist, programming is many times the means to achieving the solution. And that is why these successful programmers are pushing everyone to learn.

<comment><USER5> "Zuck, Gates, Dorsey, Houston, etc. are all encouraging people to learn to code for this reason"

Certainly the self serving reason for the push can't be overlooked. The more people that are pushed into coding the more of a chance that Zuck/Dorsey/Houston can find a superstar to hire.

I'm sure in any industry (medical research as only one example) the people in that industry would love if more young people took a shining to what they do. Then they would have more to pick from. Sports works the same way. If you get a bunch of people interested in football out of the funnel comes some superstars and you have an entire industry.

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm not so sure if I agree with the self serving push. I mean sure, these guys want great engineers--in fact, Zuckerberg explicitly states that.

But also remember that Zuckerberg is now investing in young medical research and Gates has been a philanthropic investor for a long time--these guys are looking beyond their companies and show that they truly care about the world and solving the BIG problems that exist. They are literally world-serving through these investments.

<comment><USER6> If there's no self interest involved at all how come Objective-C is not on the list of languages that they're pushing?

<comment><USER7> Because it isnt that great of a language and only a handful of people can actually make money with it?

<comment><USER6> 291K "app economy" jobs is nothing to sneer at: <http://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/>. One of 'em is mine. I support a family of five with it. Why isn't that on the list of things we'd want to teach kids to be able to do?

The code.org video opens with a Steve Jobs quote, and the language that powers much of his legacy isn't good enough to teach? Really?

<comment><AUTHOR> let me know if im missing something, but where do they mention specific programming languages? I don't seem to see any reference to it. Furthermore, Objective C is taught like the others--for example, CodeSchool has an entire section on iOS app development and an Objective C tutorial to go along with it...

<comment><USER6> When you volunteer to teach (<http://www.code.org/help>), they list languages that you can teach, and the list they push does not include Objective-C. Nor is there an "other" option.

EDIT: They added an "other" option to that list since yesterday when I first tried to sign up. That's a good start.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Loved seeing them bring in celebrities outside of the tech world to share their experiences/passions for code.

Chris Bosh was a complete surprise to me but made me like him even more.

<comment><USER9> I agree. Not many young people know who Gabe Newell or Drew Houston is. But seeing big names like that that younger people are familiar with could lead to more interest in coding. Great video.

<comment><USER10> Or compare the public reaction of the death of Steve Jobs vs. the death of David Ritchie

<comment><USER11> You mean Dennis Ritchie...

BTW, I posted news about his death (I heard of it a week after he died, go figure) on facebook. Its sad that one person replied with RIP Mr. Ritchie and a "like". I was pleased though.

That's the way the world turns.

<comment><USER12> Yep, same with John McCarthy, who died around the same time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Make sure to check out CodeHS. We are the little demo shown in the video using "Karel the dog." We work on making it fun and accessible to beginners, mostly in high schools and middle schools, but also have all ages of students. More than other "learn to code" sites, we focus on problem solving rather than syntax, and also provide help from real people to students along the way. <http://codehs.com>

It's exciting to see a video like this highlight the real need and current lack of computer science education in high schools. That is exactly what we are working on, and have high schools all around the country! If this is an issue you are interested, in please contact as at email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER14> I'm a manager. I can read code (PHP and C#) to some extent, but I can't code anything. I tried to learn it several times, but the syntax and all its curly braces were simply too complex to me. A bit frustrated, I decided to move one step up in the stack and tried to understand software at a "macro level", architecture, paradigms etc. I wanted to be able to make IT decisions based on concepts I found easier to grasp at that higher level. It was equally hard. But there is one thing I got from the learning process that I really liked and kept alive in my head for future use: the notions of abstraction and generalization. I'm thankful I learned this. I see value in applying it in my life. If the idea behind the widespread of teaching/learning how to code, involves concepts like those I mentioned, then I think it is super valid.

<comment><USER15> If you still want to learn how to code, try with different languages. Python is a favourite for people starting out with programming, for example.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> I get the message and it certainly makes sense for alot of people to be able to code, but on the other hand i know so many (also smart) people that hate any job that would involve using a computer for more than communication.

Not everyone wants to sit in front of a screen all day, and imo thats a good thing.

<comment><USER17> Not everyone wants to sit and read or do calculations, but it's still important to have a basic grasp of literacy and numbers.

Currently, there is not a basic grasp of digital literacy. I don't think everyone should know, off the top of their head, how to compile a script. But if people understood the idea of patterns in text and repeatable tasks (i.e. for loops), that could be very helpful, especially to professional developers who can make use of structured, well planned information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER18> Software is terrible. I'm not sure the solution to the vast stinking wasteland of software slop is more people -- if pressed, I'd say it's less software.

</comment><comment><USER19> FOr me the reasoning is simple:

* reading and writing code is basic literacy for the information age

* One generation hence, any company that is literate (almost all employees write code, the use of code runs through all its processes) will have enormous competitve advantages. Or rather any company that is illiterate will have enormous competitive disadvantages

* So Software will eat the world.

* but in the process from here to there, developers will take over more and more - moving from the "typing pool" into all of the company.

* this is unlikely to be a fixed supply of coders getting more % of revenue, and more like everyone learns to code and then usual political fighting resumes.

<comment><USER20>
      > reading and writing code is basic literacy for the
      > information age

No. Just like everyone being a car mechanic is not the basic literacy of the automotive age.

"Everyone learns to code" is a pipe dream.

<comment><USER19> But everyone learning to drive is / was. Being a car driver is python coding. Being a car mechanic is probably on the order of writing a compiler.

The analogies will always break down but really, in this day and age, an adult in the Western world who cannot drive is socially and econmoically disadvantaged. ( _chooses_ not to is likely a different thing - for half of 20 years in London I had no car and biked / tubed everywhere. Now, my day would be impossible without a car. Sad but true)

I mean how many 17 year-olds do you know who say, "Learning to drive - <USER2> needs it?"

<comment> k-mcgrady >> "But everyone learning to drive is / was. Being a car driver is python coding. Being a car mechanic is probably on the order of writing a compiler."

I think being a car driver is more equal to being a competent computer user not a python programmer.

<comment><USER19> Really? Driving a car is hard... lives depend on it, it requires judgement and constant attention to details. That we have mostly got it down to our sub- concious does not change that.

"competant" computer users who do not code basically send email and write word docs. Thats the level of putting on a seat belt, or working out how to turn on the air-con.

We can argue about the analoigy for a long time, but pretty much anyone can be taught to code a simple dynamic web site. Children learn Logo - thats Lisp basically.

Anyone _can_ code - just teach them young enough.

<comment><USER21> You're straining this analogy though. Using fine motor skills and hand eye coordination is different from understanding recursion and using to solve problems. Let's get serious everyone. :)

This is not to knock anyone but let's say all of us participating in this discussion are at or better than the level of coding we think the general public should be at. This coding ability still doesn't seem to make us have great, sound, logical arguments and all these other attributes that are being espoused.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Programming only does not help you think, there are several other disciplines that help you think. Philosophy/Logic/Sociology IMHO does it better. If industry needs more programmers, for economic growth, this does not mean kids should be brainwashed to learn to code. And even after learning to code, what do you do, an average programmers life goes just copy pasting stuff.

Google/SO customize copy and paste. Thats what I have been doing. I wonder if I actually think to solve problems while coding or just pile patterns of text, place proper settings and API keys.

Having said all above, Deep within I believe hackers are like painters(Read pg's great essay - <http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html>), for hacking is like painting, would you want every one to be a painter? If not why everyone a programmer? Why learn to code? Programming or Painting is not mathematics nor reading writing skills, i can live happily without learning how to paint and how to write codes. Coding is NOT an essential life skill, there are many who have been living without and will continue to live. I won't learn programming because i don't require it.

I feel sad, on such brainwashing. And starting with steve job's quote about programming, is like doing a ferrari promo by Michael Jordon. I would have been happier, had they got something from woz.

Michael Moore come up with a documentary please.

<comment><USER23> everyone might not end up painting, but to extend the analogy, most schools have art classes.

</comment></comment><comment><USER24> At first, I dislike teaching programming in schools. It is because the space might then be over populated and finding jobs will be harder. Then I realized math was taught in school, science was taught in school. But most of us students didn't end up as mathematicians or scientists. Programming is much like math and science. It is a technical topic, and not all of us will like it. It can be taught in school as an essential subject but not all of them will pursue to be a programmer in the future.

<comment> dylan-m It would make software developers' lives a lot easier if so many people weren't scared out of their wits by computers. I think even basic programming knowledge can really help with that, because it makes it abundantly clear that a computer is, itself, a tool rather than a magic box (that happens to contain some tools in between all the scary and confusing stuff).

It isn't so much that I think everyone should be writing their own databases, but some understanding of how good software _should_ work, (for example, standard data formats), can guide informed decisions about software. Some basic technical knowledge is enough to understand why you should never build a large website on an ancient CMS where you end up with thousands of HTML pages that will need to be completely rewritten, one by one through some clunky web interface, when the site's design changes. Anyone should be able to look at that kind of setup and say "hey, that's complete garbage — let's hire someone who knows what they're doing!" and there will be a few less website janitors in the world. And hopefully a few more people making cool new stuff in their place.

Sorry, that kind of veered off course :/

<comment><USER21> But take any subject we learn in high school, whether it's math, science, history, etc. The general public is vastly uninformed about all of those subjects regardless of the fact that they are taught in high school. Why would programming make a bit of difference in that sense? It's not like programming is not taught at all in high school, anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I think the video was great and people are over analyzing it. The following is what I got out of the video because I didn't over-analyze it like most people are doing:

(1) Everyone should be introduced to computer programming. Keyword here is introduced. Just like kids are introduced to Art, English, Biology, Sports, etc. Many middle and high schools are simply ignoring technology for the most part despite it's growing relevance in our lives and that is what this video is trying to point out.

(2) A career in software engineering isn't necessarily the cubicle dwelling, loner, boring stigma that most uniformed people associate with it. They're showing that it can be a very fun and impactful environment like at Valve, Facebook, and Dropbox (noting the free food, laundry, etc)

(3) You potentially have the opportunity to affect many people in very positive ways through the software that you develop.

(4) EVEN if you don't pursue a career in programming, it can help you understand its implications in many OTHER seemingly unrelated fields. And it will help you develop critical thinking skills.

(5) It can be a learned skill like any other and there's no need to be intimidated by it.

All of those are very noble intentions in my opinion and valid concerns to address to the general perception of programming as well as computer education at early stages to develop interest in people that otherwise wouldn't have known about it.

</comment><comment><USER26> It seems silly to me that a basic computer science ciriculum isn't being added to high school or before. In the same way you have to take basic biology, chemistry, and physics, a modern student needs at least a fundamental exposure to the basics of computing

<comment><USER27> I wholly agree with you, though I will expand it by saying that I hope they bring back some of the other vocational classes as well (woodshop, metalshop, etc). While I can't wait to see what new generations of programmers will bring us, we need craftsmen, mechanics, welders and other vocational professions just as much to help us with our physical infrastructure.

Basically, everything Mike Rowe says here - <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NwEFVUb-u0>

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> I mostly agree with the gist of the video in that learning to program is empowering and can sometimes result in a job. However, the type perk-laden of working environments shown are unrealistic, and limited to large companies such as Google or Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER29> When many of us started using computers, all you could do with them was learn to program them. There were relatively few distractions of video games, or the Internet to draw your focus away.

Today's computers are so engaging as a communications and entertainment device, many young people are not exposed to the possibility of using the computer as a creative tool.

Learning to program is just one such activity to get the creative juices flowing in the next generation. Learning to use a computer to write a paper, make a presentation or build a spreadsheet are fine; but the power a computer can unleash has much more potential for creativity and originality when students are taught to instruct the computer directly.

The early learn-to-program sites are focused on learning programming languages. This should evolve into more sophisticated environments where higher level constructs are made readily available (e.g., graphical environments, data storage and communication features).

It's exciting because we can also bring the social element into the equation to create for and with your friends and family.

</comment><comment><USER30> The pages at <http://www.code.org/learn> could also include a reference to the Raspberry Pi and the foundation behind it: <http://www.raspberrypi.org/about>.

> We want to see it being used by kids all over the world to learn > programming.

It used to be a lot more expensive than $40 to give a child access to a computer that (s)he could program and tinker with...

</comment><comment><USER31> I think the point is there is a huge gap between the supply and demand for programming education, particularly for ages from 8 to 18. It is so easy and rewarding to feed the spark of desire to learn and create among kids of this age range, especially with all of the great free or almost free resources like MIT's Scratch purpose-built to address this need and reduce the barriers to entry.

Schools, teachers, and most parents are not equipped to deliver these experiences today. The superficial "technology programs" at most schools are appallingly shallow, not going much beyond Garage Band and book reports in Powerpoint.

Videos like this help motivate those who have the skills to engage and make a difference. What's not to like? Go out and get involved in volunteering to teach programming to kids. You will love it, and you will make a difference for kids who will go on to be the next generation of software developers.

<comment><USER32> My 7 year old and I have been working together on the Super Scratch book from No Starch and he's having a blast. When he asks "Can we program now?" instead of asking to watch a TV show, it's an awesome feeling. With things like Scratch and now Minecraft (which he also loves) on the Raspberry Pi, it's great to see so many resources for kids that go beyond the BASIC programming I didn't start learning until I was a few years older than him.

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> I've heard lot of people say that the best way to learn to code is to set out to solve a problem you're having.

I wonder if the global trend towards open solutions for problems will discourage people learning to code. I've been using computers for perhaps 15 years and I've only ever skirted around the edges of coding. I've learned a little regex and a tiny bit of bash scripting and I know how to edit a little php to get Wordpress to do what I want it to, but that's as much as I've needed to solve every computing problem I've encountered.

Wordpress is a pretty good example: there's now such a rich ecosystem of themes, plugins and hacks that you can get it to do some pretty amazing things without needing to actually write any code yourself.

<comment><USER34> Then you're thinking too small. Solve non-computing problems you're having! :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> I really wish people didn't spread this kind of message. Think job security guys! Come on!

<comment><USER11> I say "bah-humbug" to job security. That means that you just don't know or care about your craft. If you were really "1337" job security would be the last thing on you mind. You would actually be running the show and working on amazing products/solutions.

I'm a senior developer and I teach my methods to my colleagues all the time. It doesn't hurt me, but helps the team and the cause immensely. It makes going to work much more enjoyable when everyone is on the same page and pushing each other.

<comment><USER36> > I say "bah-humbug" to job security. That means that you just don't know or > care about your craft.

I'm twenty-five years old. My wife and I have four cats, a home, two cars, and more than six figures of combined student loan debt.

I earn 75% of our total income as a Software Engineer. We can't survive on my wife's income alone and we don't have any family members to fall back on if times get tough.

So you, a senior web developer at JPC, might say "bah-humbug" to job security, but I, for the reasons listed above, do not.

<comment><USER37> I think the parent comment is absolutely right, more competition in the industry can only be a good thing from a societal perspective, as the highest quality workers take the jobs from the poor performers. Obviously from your perspective it might be worrisome, especially (and I apologize for getting personal) with all that stuff coupled with student loans, but surely it's a net societal good.

<comment><USER36> I was responding to the specific portion of the parent comment I quoted, nothing more.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This no-profit IMHO should focus on creating a free, cross-platform, awesome system similar to Codea iPad app [1], that is, the BASIC of 80s. Everything not in the same line is too boring.

I've a very very positive experience with load81 [2], something I wrote almost solely for my son. In the latest months and thanks to this program my son learned to write Lua code and we are having a lot of fun.

I don't think it would be possible without a system that makes drawing a circle or checking where the mouse pointer is _trivial_.

[1] <http://twolivesleft.com/Codea/>

[2] <https://github.com/antirez/load81>

</comment><comment><USER39> I was fortunate enough that the public elementary school I went to, had a full computer lab (in 1985); the public middle school and high school also did. And this was in a very poor part of the country. There's little question every school in America should have that; if my poor public schools were able to make it happen, anybody can.

I learned basic programming in middle school (turbo pascal!) and high school courtesy of those opportunities. I plan to give back throughout the rest of my life, to the education system I came from. If even one or two people per school did that, it would make a huge difference.

</comment><comment><USER40> Just want to share something I've been involved with: <http://www.kidsruby> and <http://www.kidscodecamp.com>

<comment><USER40> Sorry for typo, can't edit. <http://www.kidsruby.com>

</comment></comment><comment><USER41> I think programming really needs to be added to public school curriculums. Not just because there is a lot of job opportunities for people with the skill set, but also because I personally believe it is one of the best vehicles for learning critical thinking skills, problem solving and computer literacy. All skills that are very useful in todays day and age regardless of wether you end up ever writing a line of code outside of school.

</comment><comment><USER42> I think exposing kids to programming is a good thing. But when so many applicants fail the Fizzbuzz test, do you think there is something innate about coding? For other subjects, like math, you can get most people to do the basics, like add 2+2.

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating- programm...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2006/07/separating-programming- sheep-from-non-programming-goats.html)

<comment> qu4z-2 But 2+2 is something you learn by rote, really.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> School courses will do nothing if people don't have access to programmable computers. And they don't have - Windows doesn't ship with Visual Studio, OSX and Linux are irrelevant, iOS and Android don't come with SDK CDs and demos.

Now, of course, you know that these tools exist, and I know too. But most people don't and to them programming simply doesn't exist. Teaching these people quicksort in school won't be of much help.

<comment><USER44> But most have access to Excel. VBA has it warts but the step from Excel is small and creating something valuable is actually possible for beginners.

<comment><USER21> VBA ... gosh ... Why don't you just use a Web browser and Javascript.

<comment><USER44> I hate VBA as much as the next person here, quite certainly even more. However, comparing VBA and Javascript:

\- To be really productive Javascript requires knowledge of HTML/CSS

\- Both have their quircks

\- For the things people do in their day jobs Excel/VBA is a better match

\- You can do some mathematical stuff easier, it has matrix multiplication and a generally usable solver

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I am in full support of this movement. Its benefit in my opinion are twofold: 1) Younger kids learn to code and which will result in them becoming more skillful programmers when they are older. 2) People who can currently program and write shitty code get challenged and can actually seek to improve their own skills and learn about more advanced concepts in programming.

</comment><comment><USER46> I think these days is relatevely easy to get basics down with sites like codecademy, codeschool, teamtreehouse and such. At least in web developement. You can get the idea how it all works, how to do simple stuff.

To me, the biggest challenge is to get bigger picture of technology I am using -> once I understand that learning is much faster.

</comment><comment><USER47> I really hope that barely-disguised copy of an LCD sound system song in there involved royalties being paid to the band.

<comment><USER48> It's turtles all the way down. I love LCD, but here are examples of things James Murphy lifted:

the fall telephone thing: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEOtckaZtLg#t=0m36s> pretty distinctive way to say "i'm tapped" used in movement: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6MIChyCBAU#t=0m43s>

in general his vocal style and delivery alternate between mark e smith from the fall and brian eno. really not a bad thing in my book, but still not entirely original.

homosapien by peter shelley: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HwmO_GZfzI> sounds like the basis of north american scum: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jmm14g4cAFc>

there's also the more than passing similarity between somebody's calling me: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRCAuao67F4> and iggy pop's nightclubbing: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3OaMZojJRg>

all i want <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6BYCcy5aeo> is pretty much bowie's heroes.

<comment><USER47> I understand it's just culture, appropriation is how culture develops. That being said, that piece of music used in this is obviously just a rip off of Dance Yrself Clean, with a small modality change.

<comment><USER49> Based on past occurrences, it would seem that DFA Records would not mind it too much:

<https://twitter.com/dfarecords/status/205708411344666625> [http://boilerroom.tv/james-murphys-red-bull-music-academy- le...](http://boilerroom.tv/james-murphys-red-bull-music-academy-lecture/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> This is all well and great, and my comment is meant in no way to belittle these efforts.

What good programmers have a lot of, though, is self-discipline, initiative, and patience. If we can teach kids those core skills, they can use them to learn programming later or excel in any other profession they choose.

</comment><comment><USER51> Coding is an incredibly frustrating and hard path and I doubt that coding will become more popular on a professional level. There probably can be more hobby programmers that code some simple stuff but there is NO WAY coding can become some kind of popular mainstream hobby.

</comment><comment><USER52> I showed this to my high school programming class not two hours ago. They weren't impressed until Gaben showed up. What does this say about inspiring students to code? It syas that Minecraft has probably done more for the Java than Sun Microsystems ever did.

<comment><USER21> Well, shocker, kids are more into games than licensing collaboration software to other businesses ...

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Wrongly Done. Do kids really care about Bill Gates and the guy who created Valve ?

Show them some Pixar movie and tell them how those movies were made with technology. Tell them how technology enables sports bring people whom they can relate with. Not Zukerberg or Gates.

</comment><comment><USER54> Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.

We're all going to look supremely stupid for things like this in ~2 years.

</comment><comment><USER55> I think it's interesting that initiatives to teach programming mostly reach to kids.

A big chunk of my peer group is 30 year-old underemployed humanities students. If they were interested, I'm sure that most of them could be not- underemployed.

Though TV takes its toll.

<comment><USER56> I don't understand what you mean by your last sentence. Are you saying that your friends are too distracted by TV to learn coding?

<comment><USER55> I feel that if my peers would stop with the incessant stream TV, movie, and video games, they would have no problem fitting in the time to learn all manner of useful tricks, including picking up skills that would free them from the jobs they hate.

I don't believe this is a collective personal shortcoming on their part-- it's probably just the way of the world-- but the idea that so many of them hate their jobs but have ten hours a week to play games/watch films frustrates me. Rationally I understand why you might want to spend the day between your swing shifts waiting tables doing something other than working, but from where I am I think that all I can do is encourage them to do other things and point out resources.

<comment><USER57> I think people often use media to self-medicate and distract themselves from their problems. Many of your peers probably don't even enjoy a lot of the media they consume, but they keep consuming it because it is easier to to do that than think deeply about their situation and take the risks necessary to change it. If media is your coping mechanism for a bad situation, it's tough to put that aside even though it's rationally the obvious thing to do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER58> That's a cool intiative, But we have to consider that all companies that support the initiative arent there for free.

Theres a commercial interest in encouraging kids to code: cheaper manpower in the future.

</comment><comment><USER59> Wow, we should have a lot more of these kickass videos so people understand what we do without having to tell them :)

</comment><comment><USER60> Seriously, do you think inspiring the students with the amount of money, 'they' earned with code is a good idea?

</comment><comment><USER61> The gap between CS majors and software jobs is misleading. You don't need a CS degree to become a decent programmer.

Still, if there's such a shortage of good programmers (and I agree that there probably is) then why aren't we playing this to our advantage? A senior engineer can't afford a house in the Bay Area or New York, and our status is low-- we still work for managers; we're a defeated tribe in this way. Most of us don't have the autonomy to choose our tools or decide whether to use or replace old legacy code. Shouldn't our top priority, as a tribe, be to change this?

We should make programmer autonomy our major issue. [http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/programmer- au...](http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/programmer-autonomy- is-a-1-trillion-issue/) This will benefit us and the economy as a whole.

Then, after we've had this victory, we can work on increasing the total number of programmers.

<comment><USER62> > You don't need a CS degree to become a decent programmer.

You need one to get a job, though. If not now, in twenty years when you're old in an ageist industry.

<comment><AUTHOR> If you can learn to program on your own and become proficient in it, build great projects, and keep up to date with the languages, why does it matter what major you are?

Granted I'm 20 and still in school, but just being a CS major doesn't make someone a great programmer. I like to think that employers care about projects you've worked on as that is the best way to see a true programmers talents.

<comment><USER63> Just realize that if you don't get a degree, you will always battle people who feel threatened by you. School becomes a core part of most people's identity, and they can be very protective of it in passive aggressive ways. People are told from a young age that people who didn't attend school are uneducated. At least that's been the case with me. I have a great career and no degree, and it's something I deal with constantly.

<comment><USER64> Yes, I'm in a similar situation and see the same reactions. People have a very irrational concept of post-secondary schooling. In many cases it's a very personal thing for them. Many've grown up thinking they'd be the first-in- family college graduate, holding that as a life goal, and listening to their parents and grandparents complain about how they never had the same opportunities as the college grads. Others have grown up with the expectation that they'll keep in the family tradition of graduates and not bring shame by failing to graduate. They've paid dozens of thousands of dollars for a degree. They've invested four years or more of their life, and all of that is epitomized in the "degree", when they're pat on the back and told they're a real grown-up now. And _many_ seriously take this whole process to heart, and the less real value in a career, the worse this degree snobbery gets. They feel their degree has given them everything (and honestly it probably has, since their personal commercial value is often negligible). It almost becomes an idol to them. It is, therefore, considered a heresy if you speak evil of that system, and heretics are not well received.

Because of all this social programming, there are few who will admit that modern undergraduate programs, and often their graduate counterparts, are a horrendously inefficient, slow bureaucracy that provides a form of pseudo- independence for developing adults, cater classes to the lowest common denominator in order to pass more students, and occasionally have desirable network-building properties. But that's the reality.

We tie up adult identity in degrees very, very closely in our culture. Someone who never graduated college (or worse, high school) is automatically considered lower class by many. It is considered an essential of both personal and professional development in the white-collar world. Their whole lives people are told, "Go to college so you can get a good job." Is it any wonder those who've "paid their dues" and gone through these motions feel entitled to employment, even if they have no commercially viable skillset (and, this is critical to understand: _most don't_ )? It's becoming a large social issue, but no one is willing to admit the real causes.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


What Happens When Millennials Run the Workplace? - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/fashion/millennials-mic-workplace.html?_r=0 <comment><USER2> _" Then, several days later, he noticed Mr. Pavelski tweet a link to Medium, a popular blog for cathartic, personal essays. In a post titled, 'How to Lose Your Mind and Build a Treehouse,' Mr. Pavelski wrote about feeling burned out at work and wanting to rebuild a childhood treehouse as therapy. The first line read, 'I said that I was leaving town for a funeral, but I lied.'"_

If employees feel that they need to make up a fictitious funeral to be able to justify a week's vacation (which they're probably entitled to by company policy), that suggests a work environment where management doesn't value work- life balance. No amount of "aggressively playful vibe" at work is a substitute for being able to take time off for yourself when you need it.

</comment><comment><USER3> The bit about respecting everyone's religion reminded me of my old company. They would celebrate everyone's birthday with a cake. As we gained more employees, we ended up having a cake day nearly every day of the week.

Whether you like it or not, with more stories like this, many employers will eventually just avoid hiring millennials altogether. I honestly wouldn't want the hassle and there are plenty of people willing to follow the rules and actually work.

It's also pretty easy to get an idea of a person's work ethic on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites.

The environment described here sounds like a place that probably won't get much work done (and will not stay competitive). No discipline and workers that clearly have no respect for the bosses that hired them.

With a 'frat-like' work environment, how are they not getting sued out of existence?</comment>


Nanny State Says: "Shhhhh That Commercial is Too Loud" - <AUTHOR> http://techliberation.com/2009/10/08/nanny-state-says-shhhhh-that-commercial-is-too-loud/

<comment><USER2> >And isn't "strident" the very adjective most commonly used to write off the arguments of those with whom we disagree?

Erm, no, it isn't.</comment>


A Reason Why Your Contractual Agreement Shouldn't Be a "Work for Hire" - <AUTHOR> https://blog.craftblue.com/2016/12/work-for-hire-freelance-contractual-agreement/ <comment><USER2> > _A highly recommended practice is to institute a clause which covers a > variety of scenarios of assignment of the copyright for all work produced._

This is what I've done for years with my Service Agreement. IP transfer officially occurs on full payment, and rights are assigned to Client if Product would not be considered a work made for hire under applicable law. Though if I'm not paid, I send a written warning after N past due. If still don't get paid N days past said notice, I reserve the right to equitable relief, send a cease to desist, and if I still don't get paid I can go to court and get an injunction to stop Client from using it. There is some language that clearly provides a grace period to the Client to use it while awaiting invoices, etc.

IP transfer is the most leverage you have as a freelance software consultant. It's the one thing you should have clearly defined in a Services Agreement, and you shouldn't waffle on.

<comment><USER3> How would you recommend drafting something similar? Did you work with a lawyer to produce your Services Agreement?

<comment><USER4> Consult a lawyer. Someone versed in it.

Obligatory: Fuck You, Pay Me [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3RJhoqgK8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3RJhoqgK8)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> There are at least four US District court decisions that stand for the proposition that software qualifies as a work for hire as either a "contribution to a collective work" or a "compilation": iXL Inc. v. Adoutlet (N.D. Ill. March 29, 2001); Logicom Inclusive, Inc. v. W.P. Stewart & Co. (S.D.N.Y. August 9, 2004); Siniouguine v. Mediachase Ltd. (C.D. Cal. June 11, 2012); and Stanacard, LLC v. Rubard, LLC (S.D.N.Y. February 3, 2016). So far no appellate court has ruled on the issue AFAIK.

</comment><comment><USER6> Can somebody point me to a model contract that does what we all want it to do? There must be some good ones out there that we can use.

<comment><USER7> Cooley has these.

[https://www.cooleygo.com/documents/](https://www.cooleygo.com/documents/)

Adding Wilmer Hale, Orrick and Founders' Workbench

[https://launch.wilmerhale.com/build/document- generator/](https://launch.wilmerhale.com/build/document-generator/) [https://www.orrick.com/Total-Access/Tool-Kit/Start-Up- Forms](https://www.orrick.com/Total-Access/Tool-Kit/Start-Up-Forms) [http://www.foundersworkbench.com/](http://www.foundersworkbench.com/)

I think Clerky does this as well.

 _Documents just want to be free_.

[https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/10/documents-just-want-to- be-...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/01/10/documents-just-want-to-be-free/)

<comment><USER8> My impression is that Cooley tends to be more company-favorable. Those docs are to help a startup get to the point where they can afford to hire Cooley.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My old law partner liked to harp on this point as well, and it is a valid one. However, as a matter of practice most well-drafted work-for-hire agreements also contain a backup assignment clause something like "to the extent the work is not a work-for-hire, I hereby assign the copyright". "Work-for-hire" is one of the many misnomers you find in commercial contracts, along with "intellectual property".

</comment><comment><USER10> Joel Spolsky recently wrote on this topic, with focus on full time employment

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side- pr...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/)

"... If you hire a photographer to take pictures for your wedding, you own the copies of the pictures that you get, but the photographer still owns the copyright and has the legal monopoly on making more copies of those pictures. Surprise! Same applies to code."

</comment><comment><USER11> Ok, wait. I am somewhat confused by this article. It is from my (non-lawyer) understanding that intellectual property ownership generally default to the creator. This happens even in "independent contractor" type of relationships, from my understanding. In the case of an employee/employer relationship, on the other hand, IP generally lies on the employer.

So if it's a work-for-hire relationship, IP automatically goes to the potential employer?

<comment><USER12> At least in my country the IP goes to the author, full stop. In employment contracts you then specifically transfer the IP to the employer.

<comment><USER13> Though I'm not a lawyer, I have direct experience with this having successfully sued a client over IP related issues.

Under California law all IP produced by an employee during their employment, that is within the domain of the employer's work product and regardless of where that work was produced, is by default owned by the employer. All IP produced by a independent contractor is owned by the independent contractor, you pay for their time not for their work product.

'Work for hire' clauses are used to simply and effectively move an independent contractor into the same category as employee with respects to the IP they produce. It does not do the same with respect to the independent contractor's compensation, or rights as employees.

Generally the 'work for hire' clause itself is entirely inflexible, it is other areas of the agreement that must be addressed to protect payment. Hollywood, for example, is run almost entirely under work for hire agreements and could not function without it.

<comment><USER14> " that is within the domain of the employer's work product and regardless of where that work was produced, is by default owned by the employer."

It's broader than that, actually.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Has anyone seen any clauses within an independent contractor agreement, which would allow the retention of certain pieces of the finished work? For instance, I write a class/component/plugin/etc. that I want to use in several projects to increase productivity. Is there a standard way to carve out and retain those pieces of code?

<comment><USER16> I don't know if there is a standard way to do it, bit that's the arrangement we have with almost all our clients. There are clauses about basically not taking IP, just reusable code for our own purposes. Clients with existing codebases are harder to sell but new projects almost never mind. You can tell the client this significantly benefits them because then they might also get "free" code from our other clients. It's like a microcosm of open source.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> While it may not fall under the precise definitions, I like to think that the source code I produce is both a translation (from an abstract concept language into a machine-executable/-readable language) AND an instructional text (for the machine to parse and execute).

From the perspective of a machine, that makes a surprising amount of sense.

<comment><USER18> Sure, but the law is generally interpreted from the perspective of the humans

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) is one of the prime commandments of software development.

The problem I see with transferring IP/copyright on a 'work for hire' basis, is that certainly in my case a substantial portion of the codebase is often code that is being reused for good reason.

Losing control of that code now effectively prevents the same code from being reused this elsewhere without getting into further messy contractual details.

Personally I refuse to do work for hire - instead the client gets unrestricted right to use code as desired but does not own copyright.

Thoughts?

</comment><comment><USER20> You could certainly argue that writing software as part of a team is "a contribution to a collective work".

What surprises me is how many startups are not even aware of at least including a "work for hire" clause when bring on software developers.

<comment><USER21> Sure, but even then if contributed code is part of a collective work, the copyright act _still_ requires a work for hire agreement.

Section 101 says: A "work made for hire" is—

(1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or

(2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, _if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire._

[https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#101](https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#101)

<comment><USER22> Yeah, that is indeed the legal definition in the US of a work-for-hire.

As is pointed out though, for non-employees (contractors) there's an enumerated list of categories that that can be applied to. Writing software isn't in there. Although software and a web site designs might be considered an audiovisual work in some cases. Games and multimedia software are clearly audiovisual works. Accounting software, maybe not. Backend scripts, probably not.

The second clause of the definition should probably be updated by Congress to reflect modern realities. However, as it has not been updated, an explicit copyright transfer is needed, or some form of licensing agreement. A lot of specialists for hire will insist on a license instead of an outright copyright transfers because they sure are not going to give away their core work permanently to one party, short of a buy out. With either a copyright transfer or licensing contract it doesn't need to be a work for hire, that issue is irrelevant, the contract is written to cover what you actually need.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> It should be "one of its requirements" in the text

</comment><comment><USER24> Citation needed - why must they fall in one of these categories?

 _The deliverables must fall within one of nine limited categories of works_

<comment><USER25> It's literally in the same sentence you're quoting:

> Per 17 USC 101, the deliverables must fall within one of nine limited > categories of works.

Though I'll grant you that _17 USC 101_ might not be blatantly obvious, a quick Google search will reveal [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/101) as a source for further information.

<comment><USER24> Your point is valid. Mea culpa. What isn't obvious to me is that the produced work is only protected by copyright, not trade secret property. But my wonder is immaterial to the practical issue as most code is copyrighted; and any arguments I would make about trade secrets or patents would be easily refutable without a long debate. Apologies and mea culpa.</comment></comment></comment>