Actually, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy says it in its introduction.
"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen ...". So, there.
I can't believe UK has only two companies (the Royal Non-Software Company and the Royal Software Company?). Apply for other positions in other software companies. Even non-software companies with strong IT departments have nice jobs, technically speaking. Specially the very large non-software companies, who also tend to look beyond your specific degree - a large company usually can afford a hiring process that will allow them to understand your abilities (regardless of your nominal college degree).
I have definitely been reticent on the jobsearching front. I guess a combination of inertia/laziness and fear have got in the way; also I suppose I am worried that if I apply to jobs before I am 'ready' (well practised in the algo stuff typically asked at decent job interviews, etc.) I will end up blowing my chances at these places then later when I come to apply with more experience in this area they won't want to hear from me. Is that a stupid approach?
Yes. Crikey. There are thousands of companies in the UK that hire programmers. How many of them can you possibly blow? Besides, the more jobs you apply for, the more practice you'll have applying.
I agree with your advice, but just a note on the UK:
Software companies aren't the same this side of the pond, the culture seems rather different. Maybe I've just had bad experiences, but London is full of soul crushing financial services/admin software type places. I'm sure the US is too, but there also seems to be a healthy community of fresh companies.
Check out your very own jobs.stackoverflow.com - this is one of the places I would expect a modern company to advertise, but there are nine jobs listed for the whole of the UK, compared to over 50 for NY alone. If you want a "normal" programming job you have to take your chances with the vast sea of recruiters on Monster.co.uk.
(or, of course, build personal connections and/or do your own thing)
Ironically I sent you an email about this very subject asking for advice (though more on the Micro ISV side of things) earlier :-)
Yeah. I know. I am being an idiot. I guess it's just easy to be too afraid of being rejected, which I definitely am. I need to get over myself I think.
I'm wondering if you're being too choosy about the jobs you're applying for? If you really think you'll blow your chances at job A which you really want, apply for job B. The experience of working job B might give you a more precise insight into what you want/don't want in a software job.
It's worth reading the Abstract Heresies' entry that turned my attention to this paper: http://funcall.blogspot.com/2010/05/c-vs-lisp.html (After giving it a thought I posted this entry to HN too, as I probably should have done in the first place... :))
The date is interesting, 1992 - it would still take years for Java to implement it...wrong.
Am I getting too old and grumpy or are the kids today getting too young and clueless? For the sake of Odin, it's Monday - even the Sumerians had problems with incompatible newline markers depending on the type of clay used to make the tablet. This is certainly not news and I sincerely hope it doesn't qualify as hacker either.
I share your grumpiness. But given the number of otherwise-smart people I've had to explain this to: yes, this is something that needs to be explained to the median reader of Hacker News. Too many developers in the modern world work only in abstractions and don't have any grounding in the way bytes are laid out in files.
There are an infinite set of mathematical tricks available here, some of them so obfuscated that enforcement would probably need a few years to catch up. Not to forget that printing a hard copy of the bytes of an MP3 may even warrant you free speech protection (remember the reaction to the DeCSS legal issues, like printing it in T-shirts).
This doesn't work because some of the bits the software downloads couple be "innocent" bits. E.g. the firefox installer or some random looking piece of data. Any bits can be brought into involvement by the system, hence the denial of service.
Note that due process doesn't apply to extortion. Mike Freedman gets a ton of inaccurate nastygrams from copyright enforcers, but they don't care. They keep sending them. This situation may be evil, but it exists today and it generates significant revenue. (It doesn't seem to deter much infringement, though; I guess people think it won't happen to them.) http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/mfreed/inaccurate-copy...
Also, any P2P system that downloads a significant amount of extra data won't become popular anyway, since it will be slower than non-deniable P2P. Freenet suffered from this, since all the pirates switched to the more efficient BitTorrent.
"Space," it says, "is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly hugely mindboggingly big it is. I mean you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space. Listen ...". So, there.