JL

[Hacker News Comment]

But you do study Philosophy, Medicine, Economics, Archaeology and Anthropology and many other subjects without having studied them before. The subjects that are not (or are rarely, or badly) taught at school often expect people with little existing knowledge but a strong interest and an enquiring mind. Computer Science falls into this category. Also if you think of Computer Science as being primarily about programming rather than the maths, theory and science of computing I don't think you fully understand computer science.

I chose to do Computer Science because I wanted to properly understand computers. I had essentially no programming experience although I had tried a couple of times but hadn't found the right way in, (QBasic by Example didn't work for me and I didn't discover K&R or a C compiler which I think would have worked better for me). At the end of my degree I was definitely not a great programmer but I could program in Java and ML (taught in the degree programme) and C/C++ and the WIN32 APIs self taught and used for my final year (significant scale but poorly structured) project.

There people on the course (at a very famous university) who really couldn't program at the end of the course but knew the material and official answers well enough to get good degrees. There were also many that started with good programming skills but it was certainly possible to learn enough in the three years to be able to start work and do useful programming and build experience.

Something that surprised and disappointed me at University was how few people seemed to really try to take advantage of being there and learn generally within and beyond their subject rather than being course and exam focused (not just CompSci but all subjects).

Am I a great programmer? No, but I've only spent 15 months within a professional development team, another couple of years on demo level and proof of concept software in an R&D environment and the last year self retraining in iOS and Rails development following five and half years in Product Planning and Business Development.

Who should you hire? I don't know but some simple programming tasks I. The interview stages are probably a good idea. If you want someone who is just a programmer maybe someone incurious is a good bet if they have the skills you need now but whether they are self taught or university educated I think the big question is whether you want someone to fill a particular role now or for the future growth potential that they have. If you are only interested in the fully capable now rather than the trainable (and mouldable to your company way) you may miss out onbetter long term bets.

[Hacker News comment]

They are a copycat but one with brilliant industrial design capabilities (not just a nice product but efficient to assemble), a ruthless competitive streak, most complete supply chain of any CE company (screens, semi conductors and god knows what else). They buy their way into retail with high dealer margins and slightly different models for each retailer/carrier so that the dealers/carriers push them until they are dominant.

They also form part of the supply chain for most of their competitors so they can gain an information advantage.

In the TV market I think where they really took the lead in product development was with the ability to redesign the panel packaging to use it as structure for the TV and then to design for thinner a thinner bezels.

[Comment on Hacker News]

They have spent $100Million (£70M) on this platform and while it is probably better than Google TV but its not going to have a major market impact (even in the UK) as a whole but it might have some nice features worth borrowing.

The main thing preventing it having an impact is that is essentially the wrong product. The market for >£200 digital boxes is just too small and completely dwarfed by the TV market. Samsung, LG, Sony and Panasonic will each sell many more TVs each year than the total size of the >£200 PVR market and even if only 30% connect to their Internet platforms they will all still be bigger platforms and more attractive to content than Youview (despite its greater flexibility).

The other problem is that Youview is two and half years late (originally named Project Canvas and planned for November 2009) and it has missed virtually the entire country completing the Digital Switchover (analogue switch off), 3 Christmas sales peaks, 1 World Cup (soccer) sales peak, 1 Euro Cup (soccer) sales peak and now will be going on sale at the exact time the Olmypics starts without the retailers having time to get ready. Also gadget spend is increasingly moving to tablets rather than TV boxes at the moment.

I also have very serious doubts about UK retailers ability to sell this. Most can't get TV aerial signals OR even Internet connections into the TV areas of their stores. Most PVR type products sit on shelves not connected to TVs and can't be demonstrated.

It has two chances of any traction: BT and Talk Talk, (significant Telcos) will use it for their TV platforms. Talk Talk hasn't even entered the market yet and BT has been trying for years almost giving away boxes with phone service but has little over half a million subs(may be slightly old figure) compared with 10M using Freeview (OTA), 10M using Sky (pay satellite) and 5M using Virgin (cable). If they make a competent go at the market and heavily subsidise it the total Youview platform could conceivably reach 1M.

The other chance it has is if a profile can be developed suitable for TVs (without HDD) and a major player in the TV market can be persuaded to include across their range they could really ramp up the numbers.