Ryan asks: "I've been stuck in a helpdesk position at 3 different companies for the past 5 years. What I really would like to be doing is programming. At each job, I would write small programs or dynamic web pages in PHP with a MySQL backend, a few small Linux utilities for automating jobs and small Win32 programs, all written in C. Sure, these programs were popular with my fellow coworkers, my boss liked them, but my primary function there is to answer phones, and programming is secondary. I can not transfer to the 'programming department' because its located in another state, nor would I think that department would welcome me, only because I would be coming from a helpdesk. My programming is self-taught, and I don't have a diploma from a university. I'm 25, and have a family, night school is out of the question. The market here (Danbury,-Connecticut) is dry, and HR wouldn't even look at my resume with out a degree. I know someone out there must have been in the same situation and some how gotten their foot in the door. What did you do? Any suggestions?" I'm sure there many on Slashdot who have been in this situation. If you wouldn't mind sharing your experiences on this matter, it would be appreciated. Share the ups and downs of your decisions and in particular, please answer the question: If you had to do it all over again, would you make the same decisions? Those interested in this topic may also wish to check out the the last article that touches on this subject.

ICC-Rocks writes "In light of the imminent release of the first 'stable' version of GCC version 3, OSNews features an interview with Mark Mitchel, GCC's Release Engineer. They are talking about GCC 3.x, the future and the competition."

An anonymous reader submits: "Codingstyle.com has posted a PS2 Linux Kit Roundup, with links to several programming guides, tutorials, and development tools. This is timely material, what with the release of the kit in Japan last month, and the pending release this May 22nd in North America."

RickHigh writes: "I've been waiting for a book like this. If you are doing software development of any kind, you should read this book. Especially if you are doing Extreme Programming and you errantly believe modeling has no place in XP. Or, your doing the Unified Process and you feel that your models and documents are more important than a working system, or you feel you are bogged down in documentation and required artifacts (more likely). Agile Modeling (AM) is a modeling methodology that enhances your modeling endeavors, whatever your process methodology inclination. Agile modeling will help you effectively incorporate modeling into your organization." Read the rest of Rick's review below.

jbc writes "The L.A. Times is running a story about affective computing, a field in which researchers are programming computers to recognize human emotions through the use of such clues as facial expression, vocal tone, and blood pressure. Some hail it as the dawn of a new era in super-useful machines, while others warn about invasions of privacy."

jsse writes: "Robocode is a game that teaches you Java while you build killer Java-Battle-Bots that fight each other to the death in an arena. The newest Robocode league in town, Robocode Rumble has just been launched. It's a joint effort by alphaWorks and developerWorks. If you're just getting started with Robocode, don't miss "Rock 'em, sock 'em Robocode!" An excellent hands-on starter. In addition "Secrets from the Robocode masters" a collection of tips from the experts, presents more advanced techniques and strategies to help destroy all and be the Java-Battle-Bot King. Previous slashdot story on Robocode can be found here."

ZigMonty writes "Apple has updated their Kernel Programming docs (May 1st). They are a lot more substantial now (read: they say something other than 'don't')."

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Zope 2.5.1 was released. The binaries come with Python 2.1.3. Zope nows comes out-of-the-box with PageTemplates, Sessions, VirtualHosting and the ZODB storage is based on the Standalone ZODB module maintained by Pythonlabs. Drop-in ZEO and you get a distributed object oriented database system."

danox writes "Macromedia has finally incorporated some accessibility features into flash, with their latest version flash MX (note that you pretty much need a flash viewer to see this site). Accessibility nazi Joe Clark on A List Apart has written a pretty good critique of the new features and doesn't give macromedia too much praise. Apart from the fact that macromedia has to do this in order to keep the US government as a customer, its a step forward for flash. Just think, it's now possible to write a plugin that will render flash animations as text."

aidan skinner writes: "ACT have a new GTK based IDE out for Ada, C and C++, called GPS. There's a Press Release, Quick Tour(pdf) and Detailed Tour. It's also apparently editor neutral, so I don't have to give up my beloved emacs... Sweet!"

cjpez writes: "The people at the Honeynet have issued another challenge on the Bugtraq mailing list. Instead of hacking into a box, though, this time your goal is to submit the best analysis of a binary file they'll post on Monday, May 6th. Think you're good at reverse engineering? Then try it out! They're even offering actual prizes, so you can get something besides the feeling of personal fulfillment for your trouble. The post hasn't quite made it to SecurityFocus' Bugtraq Archive yet, but I did find it at another Bugtraq archive in Germany (slashdottings abound!). The URL included in the email, http://project.honeynet.org/reverse/, doesn't seem to be active yet, so presumably we can assume it'll go up on Monday. The post fails to address other concerns, though: will the winner be in violation of the DMCA? :P The challenge was also issued, obviously enough, on SecurityFocus' Honeypot mailing list."" In a later note, he points out that the announcement has finally made it to the Bugtraq archive page." (And that URL is active now.)

Hot Interconnects 10 Program Chair John Lockwood writes: "Hot Interconnects (HotI) will be held this year on August 21-23 on the campus of Stanford University. We hope that you can attend. HotI is an international conference focusing on the hardware and software architecture and implementation of high-performance interconnects of all scales. Its themes include cross-cutting issues spanning computer systems and networking technologies for providing universal services over packet networks. The keynote speakers this year is Vint Cerf and Eric Brewer. Conference topics include network-attached storage, transport of voice and video over packet networks, high-performance network interfaces, novel switching and routing technologies capable of providing differentiated services, plug-and-play network interfaces, and active network architectures. Contributions focus on real products, prototypes, or experimental systems and their performance evaluation. For more information on the conference, see www.HotI.org"

dreamchaser writes: "Many Slashdot readers are no doubt familiar with SiSoftware's Sandra benchmarking/system analysis tool. Here is a brief interview with the head honcho at SiSoftware, C. Adrian Silasi. Note that there will be a Linux version of Sandra coming out, which I think is very good news for the Linux benchmarking situation. Shameless plug of course, as I conducted the interview. I think it is a good fit for Slashdot, though."

Def Mango Raygun writes "There is an interview with James Gosling of Sun. He talks about some language features and why they happened. It's short, but informative"

destructo666 writes "April 2002 Developer Tools now available to ADC online members. Membership is required, but it is free. This release includes a GM AppleScript Studio 1.1, plus beta versions of Project Builder 2.0 and gcc-3 Compiler." Must. Go. Play.

Aphriza writes "DirectionsMag.com has the third in a series on steganography and its uses in a vector format. Its not just for terrorists any more. Plus the scripts are GNU copylefted."

Reader Cole Tucker writes with this review: "The Ruby Developer's Guide was written with the intent to provide an overview of Ruby tools used for developing real-world applications. The book touches on a variety of areas, from GUI development to neural networks, and discusses existing Ruby packages that developers can take advantage of. In the end, the book comes out as a Ruby version of the Perl Cookbook." To see what he means by that, read on below for the rest of Cole's assessment of this book.

craybob queries: "I'm a developer for a small software group that will soon migrate from using Rouge Wave to using the C++ STL. I just left the week-long Software Developers 2002 conference, where I heard the great minds in software tell us all of the best ways to take full advantage of the STL. (I just wanted to give a quick thanks to Stephen Dewhurst and Scott Meyers) From this I came away with the feeling that this is the Holy Grail of C++. I'm sure these guys are right and that it is great, but the truth is that I'm a skeptic, so what are the downsides to the STL?"

David Kennedy writes: "Java Tools For Exteme Programming: Mastering Open Source Tools including Ant, JUnit and Cactus by Hightower & Lesiecki is a welcome addition to my bookshelf at work. It tackles a gap in the Java book market in dealing with the thorny issues of testing, integration and deployment." The rest of his review is below.

Initri writes "I read a news article (here) on Gamespot that the Freespace 2 source code has been released by Volition. You can download it there, or you can also download it here. Since I don't have the game installed anymore, I wasn't able to try out the code, but it did successfully compile under MSVC 6.0. Looks like there's a lot of learning potential here." Freespace 2 was one of my favorite games, and I wasted many hours playing it.