Re: [tlug] UNIX jobs on TLUG (was: Database frontend in Linux)

[Josh Glover <jmglov@example.com>]

2009/6/2 Nikolay Elenkov <nick@example.com>:

> 2009年 6月 2日（火）12:35 pm に Michael Bitker さんは書きました：
>
>> Staying in a Japanese company
>> will kill any chance of updating your skills.
>
> Being stuck in a position that requires you to support someone's
> crappy code, written 20 years ago, may kill your chances. But that
> has nothing to do with the company being Japanese.

I agree with Nikolay here (but of course, I must, for reasons known
only to members of the IBC), and will even toss out a method for
turning the long hours of mind-numbing work that some (many? most?)
Japanese firms require into an opportunity to update your skills:

1. Do your trivial, mind-numbing work quickly. According to my source,
[1] it should be possible to do one day of work in two-three hours.
2. Spend the rest of the time you are required (by social convention,
if not actually required) to stay at work learning whatever you want.
Install Linux / BSD / Solaris in a virtual machine on your workstation
and hack away. Study TCP/IP Illustrated. Code up a clone of Pong or
Missile Command or Asteroids in C, C++, Java, Perl, Ruby, Haskell,
Python, and Erlang. Etc.
3. ???
4. Profit!

Cheers,
Josh

[1] A gentleman who is well-known on this list, and for whom I used to
work. That'll be enough for some of you to know who I'm talking about.