James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle • Hacker News Board

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#111

Post by Tamerlin » Thu, Sep 23, 2010, 5:33 PM UTC

zacharycohn wrote: post #59

Tamerlin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IBM's done worse before. In the late 90's my father was part of a first round of IBM layoffs -- in which they cut 6000 jobs... in Dutchess County, New York. That was the first round of layoffs. Another few thousand got cut a year so later. And I don't know how many they cut outside of Dutchess County...

Were they closing down the facility in Dutchess County? How big was it?

IBM has a LOT of facilities in Dutchess County -- including their own HQ in Armonk. There are several significant plants there, and I think they still have some semiconductor manufacturing there -- which might help explain the severe pollution in the Hudson River from that area on down to New York City.

IBM's presence before that massive layoff was such that almost everyone in Dutchess County with a corporate job worked at IBM, it really felt like you either worked for IBM or you worked at the mall or a gas station. (I doubt that this is quite the case, but you get the point hopefully.)

I am fairly certain that until that massive layoff, there were hardly any tech companies other than IBM in the area. I didn't find any, at least. The only job opportunities I ever found in the area were at IBM.

I think they did close down a few facilities entirely during those layoffs. My mother's job moved from Meyers Corners to Poughkeepsie around then, because they closed down the MC facility IIRC. They probably sold or leased it out or something, it was a pretty large office building from what I remember.

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#112

Post by Tamerlin » Thu, Sep 23, 2010, 5:48 PM UTC

sprout wrote: post #57

jbarham wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who don't get the chickens vs. bulls reference: "If you were plowing a field, which would you rather use?... Two strong oxen or 1024 chickens?" - Seymour Cray There are a lot of other great Cray quotes.

Of course, look at any modern Cray ads and Cray is using the same 1024 chickens everyone else in the livestock industry is using. Sparc isn't failing because it's inferior to x86. Sparc is failing because Solaris is failing, and no other OS is built from the ground up for Sparc. You can run Linux and other Unix-likes on it, but given the choice between x86 and Sparc, you choose x86 because that's what's least likely…

It's a circular problem actually. Sparc is failing because Solaris is failing, and Solaris is failing because Sparc is inferior.

Cray got reborn in the form of SGI's Altix, which to abuse the analogy would be a pack of wolves compared to the POWER bulls.

The successor to Altix is an x86 cluster using the same high-performance, zero-latency interconnects that they used in Altix (part of the technology that SGI gained from the Cray acquisition).

x86 costs quite a bit less than Sparc. It has far higher performance than Sparc. It runs everything that Sparc does, including if you want it, Solaris. So what's the selling point for Sparc?

Java? Oh, wait -- that's what enabled everyone using a Sparc server to save money by abandoning it.

Amazon saved $17 MILLION by dropping Sun. Ebay dropped Sun (and saved millions in maintenance costs as a result) after a 2-day outage because their Sun boxes crapped out on them, and Sun support dropped the ball.

There are others, of course. Sun tried to stem the bleeding by partnering with AMD, and also by acquiring Afara and attempting to put their CPU designs into practice. x86 ended up beating them at their own game -- lower power consumption, higher throughput, lower cost...

Sparc's probably doomed. I think that Oracle bought an albatross there. There is some worthwhile technology that they might be able to use, like the system interconnects that Sun got when they bought the company that made the Connection Machine, assuming I'm remembering the name correctly. (Thinking Machines, IIRC?)

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#113

Post by VladRussian » Thu, Sep 23, 2010, 6:53 PM UTC

bcantrill wrote: post #74

VladRussian wrote: post #70

a lot of Sun's prima donnas didn't make it in Oracle wolf pack. They had their day at Sun (it was an unbelievable feast during plague), and it resulted in the failure of the company on all fronts, business and engineering, software and hardware.

More accurately, we (for there are many of us) realized that we could go solve much more interesting problems elsewhere -- and in a much better environment besides. Why would anyone wish to suffer at a technically mediocre company when there are so many interesting problems yet to solve?

O-o-o-o-h! who can forgot this one. The technical brilliance of scattering profiler calls across Solaris sources (which endeavor took enormous engineering and marketing budgets at the time when Solaris was eaten alive by Linux) is, no doubt, a sound platform to "mediocrate" a company whose products in a highly competitive marketplace are among the leaders, technically and commercially (people actually pay to use them, whereis Sun had trouble convincing people to use its products, in particular Solaris, even for free)

Apples to apples - Oracle DB has excellent profiler capabilities and even useful tools around it. Of course, in this day and age, excellent profiler capabilities and tools is just a normal must-have, a technical mediocracy and nowhere a sign of technical brilliance.

Great, the more of "we (for there are many of us) realized that we could go solve much more interesting problems elsewhere", the less chances for the Oracle server to suffer the fate of Solaris.

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#114

Post by jbjohns » Thu, Sep 23, 2010, 7:26 PM UTC

theBobMcCormick wrote: post #41

jbjohns wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get why technical people who don't want to go in management sign on as permanent employees. Why deal with all that career review nonsense, etc. when as a technical person you have no track anyway?

Job security, 401k, health care benefits, etc. Same reasons anyone signs up as a permanent employee anywhere.

Except that you don't have job security precisely because you're not going into management. Cost of living raises for 15 years without moving up the ladder (i.e. going into management) make you stick out like a soar thumb. In my experience these are always the first to go because they just look too expensive on any chart.

Re: James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle

#115

Post by gaius » Thu, Sep 23, 2010, 7:29 PM UTC

tsotha wrote: post #92

earl wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's necessarily a career path, or lack thereof, but the companies' perspective on software: I left biotech because the companies I worked for, and it seemed to be an industry problem, viewed software not as their differentiator or edge or product, but rather purely as a cost center to be minimized. From that distinction, everything flows.

I had the same problem at a mutual fund company, which is funny when you think about it. What is financial services company but a group of people that manages information?

This is why Goldman Sachs has weathered the financial crisis so well: they invest heavily in their IT.