Yeah, thanks for clearing that up for me. Obviously, you can't rank 'programmers' on a linear scale, but you can rank programmers that are suitable for your type of work on a linear scale. Also, all of the best programmers have something in common: they're all very intelligent people.
Question #1 is somewhat out of the scope of this question tho, but I'm really interested in seeing thoughts on question #2.
I vote for quality as well as agreement. If a comment makes sense and is explained well, but I don't agree with it, I'm still very eager to vote it up.
I also doesn't make sense to comment along the same lines of another commenter. If my opinion is already expressed in the comments, an upvote makes way more sense imo.
Thanks for giving me a heads up. I've indeed only looked trough the syntax and as far as I can tell it's pretty similar to javascript/python/coffeescript. I know all of these, so I thought Swift would be easy once I understand the rest of iOS dev. Could you elaborate a bit more on why it's a whole different thing?
Yes that's exactly my problem and I can't find good resources that focus on that aspect of iOS development. The actual syntax of Swift looks fine and really easy to develop, so I guess that won't be a big issue for me.
You arn't explaining much of the actual benefits of the product, but for what you do describe: Bitcoin can also solve all of these problems. Why bother using checks when it's obsolete in 5-10 years?
The issue here is ubiquity. What percentage of the world's population has heard of Bitcoin (< 1%) and what percentage of merchants offer Bitcoin as an option (also < 1%). Checks are something that anybody from college kid to seniors understand.
You are right in predicting Checks will be obsolete - and indeed that is what we are doing. By creating a "digital image" of a Check as oppose to Paper Checks. Paper Checks were not designed for e-commerce. They are a low cost option but mailing a Paper Check for an online transaction doesn't work in today's day and age.
Imagine have a Digital Image of the Check generated and transmittable anywhere over the Internet. Instantly. Or even almost instantly. That is what we are building i.e. getting rid of Paper Checkbooks so nobody has to use those pesky smart phone apps to take a picture of a Paper Check when there is an existing digital image (again think Check21)
Now coming back to Bitcoin: How are you going to acquire Bitcoins ? Mine them (again < 1% of the population)? Probably buy them. Would you rather pay 3% transaction changes to buy say $10K of Bitcoin i.e. $300.00 or would you rather use something like a "Digital Check" for say a fixed transaction cost of $1.00 ?
Thanks; that's true and in my opinion only logical; my experience isn't going more than five years back. Why do you feel like it's a matter of languages wheter to be able to be exeptional? I feel like I'm an exeptional learner and I can prove that with the projects I've worked on, but I really stand out in my passion and willingness to become one of the best in more than only programming, but (as already mentioned) the entire stack.
I don't think the language matters that much - but there are a lot of people with the skillset you describe (myself included.) PHP in particular has a reputation for poor quality programmers and code (which you'll easily see every time someone posts a PHP project here and gets asked to justify even using the language.)
I'm just suggesting that, if you're looking to impress a future employer, a portfolio might serve you better than eagerness, unless you're willing to start at the bottom.
Thanks. I'm only seventeen years old, so yeah I was thinking about starting at the bottom. The question I'm asking tho is: what should I look for in my future employer? He/she will be much like a mentor to me and I think the right choice will make a ton of difference down the road.
Lol. Thanks for the reference, but I think that you haven't understood my question by only the slightest bit. I expressed my ability to learn quickly and found myself (this is actually validated by real word examples) to be able to work on software projects with the skills I dug up in the past 5 years. I am looking for a place (not a university) where I can learn software devlopment in a quick matter and with a more hand-on experience.
I apprieciate that you try to tell me that you think I'm overrating myself, but I'd like it if you had some ground to do so.
I think you've misunderstood a couple of things. Or more spefically: I haven't been clear enough on a couple of things.
I know I can think on a PhD level, because I
- was smarter in some eareas than my teacher in cs (who had a PhD in cs)
- I've worked with people who mastered cs and during that time I felt like I was thinking on the same level as they were.
- I could try to do an IQ test but most (smart)people notice whitin a matter of minutes if the person in front of them is equally smart.
The thing you're missing tho, is the following: I'm Mike Ross before he meets Harvey; I can pass the LSAT of cs but can't be a competitive programmer yet.
If i <em>was</em>, I would apply as an engineer at Google and learn these things in my 20% time.
The Harvey I'm looking for must be able to teach me ao things how to be a good one, and at the same time challange me to bring on new clients etc etc.
> I - was smarter in some eareas than my teacher in cs (who had a PhD in cs)
Eligibility for PhDs isn't calculated by pairwise comparison.
It's judged by original research. Which requires a lot of study, a lot of study, just to take you to the outer boundaries of the sub-sub-sub-sub-field your PhD happens to be in.
One subject I was taught in a quasi-postgraduate setting (in Australia we have a kind of mini-PhD called "Honours") was evolutionary systems. In one subfield of that topic, the original paper appeared about 30 years ago. A year later there were a few dozen papers. Within five years there were tens of thousands of papers. Conferences. Study groups in computer science departments around the world.
To get a PhD in that field, you need to exhaustively search the literature -- surveying and reading potentially hundreds or even thousands of papers and projects -- just to figure out what has yet to be researched. Just to get to the starting line. That takes several years.
People with PHDs are necessarily smarter than other people. Of course, getting a PHD takes some level of intelligence and many people with PHDs are extremely smart, but like many things in life getting a PHD is largely about dedication and hard work. Additionally, people with PHDs are generally trained to be extremely knowledgeable in a very specific sub-set of a particular field. This is why companies like Google hire people with PHDs. They have specialized knowledge which it would take others years to learn.
My advice, go to college for a CS degree. Many companies won't hire someone who doesn't have a degree even if they have "real-world experience". In addition a CS degree will give you a good, solid foundation on which to build your skills. Some of the things you learn in a CS degree aren't well documented elsewhere and are difficult to learn otherwise. If you really are as smart as you think you are then you can take a very heavy course-load to complete your degree faster.
One should measure success by the numbers but by the impact.
In my opinion, and that of a whole lot of other people, The Day We Fight Back didn't have the effect a lot of us hoped for. It is up for debate whether this means it 'failed' but it certainly didn't 'succeed'.
Question #1 is somewhat out of the scope of this question tho, but I'm really interested in seeing thoughts on question #2.