Live data from Hacker News

Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

eweek.com

41–50 of 65 posts

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0xbear, it helps to cite the relevant scientific research: http://www.who.int/foodsafety/jmprsummary2016.pdf?ua=1 https://www.iarc.fr/en/media-centre/iarcnews/pdf/MonographVo... The short version is that glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer in consumers or farm workers: https://www.wired.com/2016/05/monsantos-roundup-herbicide-ca...

Why is there a class action lawsuit on TV telling me that people who are exposed to it have higher rates of cancer?

Protip: don't believe everything you see on TV.

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#42

I'm curious why the mods changed the title from "Java Creator James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)" to "Why I Quit Oracle (2010)" The fact that it is James Gosling saying this instead of a random employee seems important.

Also curious.

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#43

I'm curious why the mods changed the title from "Java Creator James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)" to "Why I Quit Oracle (2010)" The fact that it is James Gosling saying this instead of a random employee seems important.

Sadly, this sort of editorializing is quite common here. Anything remotely inflammatory or political in nature will get shot down or toned down summarily.

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#45

I'm curious why the mods changed the title from "Java Creator James Gosling: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)" to "Why I Quit Oracle (2010)" The fact that it is James Gosling saying this instead of a random employee seems important.

Sadly, this sort of editorializing is quite common here. Anything remotely inflammatory or political in nature will get shot down or toned down summarily.

It's easy to see examples where moderation rubs someone the wrong way or appears to be done poorly. I think effective moderation is more difficult than one would initially think. Do you think this is out of line with the mods oft-repeated goals of promoting constructive discussion and limiting flamewars? Given these goals (setting aside whether you agree with the goals), how would you handle this?

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#46
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it's pretty clear that Oracle acquired Sun in the hope of suing Google, it's also obvious to anyone who's been following the industry that Oracle has been doing an excellent job with Java. When Oracle acquired Sun, Java had been stagnating without seeing any major version for five years. In the four years following the acquisition, Oracle released two major versions of Java, including some very long awaited (an…

Features which were in the pipeline already from Sun days.

It's easy to have a pipeline, what's hard is actually doing the work.

Sun completely dropped the ball on Java in the last five years of its existence.

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#47
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, this sort of editorializing is quite common here. Anything remotely inflammatory or political in nature will get shot down or toned down summarily.

It's easy to see examples where moderation rubs someone the wrong way or appears to be done poorly. I think effective moderation is more difficult than one would initially think. Do you think this is out of line with the mods oft-repeated goals of promoting constructive discussion and limiting flamewars? Given these goals (setting aside whether you agree with the goals), how would you handle this?

Of course, moderation is difficult. That's why you do as little of it, only when absolutely necessary. In this specific case, I don't see how the omission of the name, which is quite pertinent, makes the discussion more constructive. I don't even see how it could have started a flamewar. As the OP suggests, that information is quite vital to this post.

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#48
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to see examples where moderation rubs someone the wrong way or appears to be done poorly. I think effective moderation is more difficult than one would initially think. Do you think this is out of line with the mods oft-repeated goals of promoting constructive discussion and limiting flamewars? Given these goals (setting aside whether you agree with the goals), how would you handle this?

Of course, moderation is difficult. That's why you do as little of it, only when absolutely necessary. In this specific case, I don't see how the omission of the name, which is quite pertinent, makes the discussion more constructive. I don't even see how it could have started a flamewar. As the OP suggests, that information is quite vital to this post.

I agree; in this case I don't see why it was changed. I'm not concerned about it enough to contact the mods in this case, but have in the past and gotten responses, and they lean heavily towards keeping the original title. If you're curious, I suggest emailing them via the contact link in the footer.

Your initial comment goes quite a bit further than addressing only this particular example, however. That's what I was addressing.

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#49
post #33

An anecdote from the article which really speaks volumes. > Making his point about the "creepiness," not only with Ellison but with Oracle's power structure, Gosling said he sparked a notion to try to improve morale amongst the Sun faithful who endured the Oracle acquisition. He said the company decided to rent out the Great America amusement park in Santa Clara, Calif., and allow the Sun folks to have a day of fun.…

Let me share a few anecdotes myself.

- A couple of years ago, the company was providing us Oracle branded corporate diary for free. An employee was allowed to order one diary. The cost center would pay the price of the diary which if I remember correctly was $3.00. There were many managers who did not allow their departments to order this diary in order to save that $3.00 per employee for their cost centers. "But I want the Oracle branded diary!" "No, we need to save money!" "I will be proud to show the Oracle branded diary to my family" "No, we need to save money!" "Then why bother providing the diaries in the first place?" "No, we need to save money!" And all this commotion happened when Oracle was spending millions of dollars in legal fees for its lawsuit against Google.

- In a meeting with a very senior VP of our department, we asked our senior VP why there were no fun activities in our team, like a day out for fun, or even something as small as a team lunch. The response by the senior VP to the best of my recollection was, "Think not what the company can do for you. Think what you can do for the company. You guys are incredibly privileged to work for Oracle. What more can one need? This is not the time to think about fun. This is the time to think how you can reduce the number of bugs in our product." It was no surprise later that within a year, all the smart developers of our team left to other companies who not only pay better than Oracle, but also offer diaries without fuss, and have team lunches and other fun events.

Disclaimer: Worked for Oracle for 3 years. Will never work for Oracle again.

Re: Why I Quit Oracle (2010)

#50
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another interesting tidbit about Oracle - if you leave as a peon and return back after a few years, you are given exactly the same conditions as you had when you left, regardless of what you did in the years in-between. Oracle doesn't care if you progressed in the meantime.

Why would anyone go back?

He's full of shit, entirely.
Post reply on HN