This is interesting. Is there anyone who has worked in companies like this willing to talk about how it ends up working out? I've never been in sales but I've never heard of companies not implementing commission.
As much as I love dynamic languages, I have to disagree friend. :( Static typing confers more benefits than just enforcing a self-documenting type check on your code. It adds a level of expressiveness about datatypes to match the expressiveness of the algorithm itself. This is especially true in languages like SML or Haskell where the type system lets you describe the data you're working with in a pretty precise way.
Dynamic langs have lots of good qualities to them, but every tool has a drawback. Tests, documentation, good team dynamic, etc. hedge against some of the disadvantages of a dynamic language. They aren't a panacea.
For me, at least, it's not so much a "raw LOC output" thing as it is a comfort thing. When I go back to IDEs or text editors that aren't Emacs, even though I can be productive there are lots of movements and tricks that I miss. It's less time spent text editing and more time spent looking, reading, and thinking.
Rarely, I'll be in a situation where I have to do a series of complex edits. At my old job if we were crunching, some of the people that were junior to me would look over my shoulder and see me rushing through a ton of different files to make them. I think if you're familiar with a tool/setup it's easy to do this, but it's not totally necessary.
When I'm out with friends and we order a larger bottle of beer (like chimay) or get a pitcher the person who grabs the pitcher usually pours for others before themselves. It's pretty informal though, other times we just pass the pitcher around and wait for everyone to get their drink before starting. I'm in the southeast, not sure what the manners are like for the rest of the country.
Yeah, that part of the article I feel is off. I've never been on a retreat but I do sit. It's definitely an experience that I think people should try, but it doesn't really bear any resemblance to a trip (at least for me). It's more like turning a magnifying glass on how I make thoughts.
Yeah, this is a pet peeve of mine. As far as I know, right now it's structurally impossible to have Congress make real reform, or even legislate effectively. There have been a string of these "inside" articles from staffers and congressmen themselves. They all have the same tone: money ruins politics, partisan politics ruins legislation, lobbyists steer the wheel more than the people, congressmen don't spend enough time with each other so they see each other as enemies, and so on.
This article in particular is funny. The writer suggests that we won't change the constitution. If the problem is that deeply rooted, what else could work but an amendment? Why not just change the rules of the game? I don't think there's a person I know who's happy with Congress, regardless of political party. I think it could work. All you need is enough people who agree, right?
See, I think we can change the Constitution. I've been thinking about this for a couple years. I think we need to start with a couple common-sense amendments for which broad-based, non-partisan support could be garnered. I have 2 ideas:
1. Fractional electoral college voting for president. This would instantly bring all 50 states back into play for presidential campaigns and enfranchise millions of people into the process whose vote for president is hardly relevant currently.
2. Instant-runoff (ranked) voting. This would allow people to vote more closely with their preferences and eliminate costly runoff elections. As a bonus, it might break the Ducorcet Law [1] tendency of "first past the post" to create two-party duopoly.
These are far from end-all, be-all solutions, but I believe them to be steps in the right direction. I truly believe we could get much of the intellectual energy of the country behind these two ideas. I think we're in dire need of something to shake up the status quo. And then maybe we can have some more substantitve debates.
There's no good way to easily gauge scheme with this site. At first I typed in "scheme programming language" and came up with 250 results, "scheme lisp" provided something slightly more relevant, but with only 45. I didn't scroll through, but even then they were only asking for people with experience in scheme (among other languages that aren't de jour, like smalltalk).
Compare with this article from a few months back: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/10/world/europe/10iht-sweden.... . While this article isn't exclusively about just birth rate, it notes that Sweden has one of the higher birthrates in Europe. Looking at wikipedia, the birth rate for Sweden is still (what I suppose is) low, only 1.67, compared with the US at 2.09.
edit: just in case you aren't inclined to read through, the article is about granting fathers paternity leave.
I think what all of these articles point to is that it's expensive or time consuming to raise kids, so people simply don't have them. It seems like the key to raising fertility rates is just to provide a good environment for parents to have them in, like giving leave to new parents and giving tax incentives or stipends to those who do. Then again, its probably more complex than this.
An interesting argument I've heard wrt to "high" western birthrate countries is that it has more to do with the societal roles of women. In both the United States and Sweden, women are generally told they can have both a career and become mothers, and while this view is not universally held in either country, it's a widespread belief. By contrast, in western nations with lower birthrates, the social views tilt towards women being told they can have a career OR become a mother, and that trying to be both is detrimental.
What tends to happen in nations when motherhood becomes an either-or proposition is, women opt to either forgo childbearing or chose to only have 1 child and then continue on with their career track. Whereas in countries with a broader view of motherhood, women who want both aren't guilted by society to stop at 1 or, and likewise fewer women face the choice of forgoing or limiting motherhood to pursue their career ambitions.
Generally there is a bounce.
For a generation after women get the chance of a career, education etc the birth rate plumnets - this is the position Italy is in.
Then 20-30 years later those same women have reached positions in politics, industry, education etc where they can influence policy on childcare, maternity leave etc. Then the number of children goes back up - this is the state Scandanavia is in.
Germany is a little odd, remember that less than 20years ago it absorbed a 3rd world country which rather screws up it's stats.
