[Very OT] Australia or Canada, which one is the best country for a geek?!?

P

Peter Booth

Australia has poisonous sharks, poisonous spiders, poisonous fish,
poisonous jellyfish,
Samba, Cenqua Clover and TimTams.

No contest.
 
N

Nathaniel Brown

Speaking from Canada, I would recommend Vancouver or Toronto. Each has
it's perks besides the technology.

Vancouver has many other conferences and events going on around town
that would appeal to the traveller in you. Minus the smog, humidity in
the summer, and freezing cold in the winter, there isn't much of a
better place to live in Canada than Vancouver.

I lived in Ottawa for a year, which is pretty close to the same
climate as Toronto, and the polarity in weather was enough to want to
make me come back home to Vancouver.

That being said, Vancouver would be on the top of the list.

As for Australia, can't say I have been there before. Nice place, but
as far as my Ruby radar goes, isn't a strong signal.

But, as I glanced over the thread, I did notice a very important
point. With todays technology, you don't need to be local to benefit
from the world community of Ruby. We are increasingly closer by the
day as technology gets more real and more life like with an amplitude
of simplicity that changes the landscape dramatically when making a
decision like this.

Nathaniel.
 
J

James Britt

Nathaniel said:
But, as I glanced over the thread, I did notice a very important
point. With todays technology, you don't need to be local to benefit
from the world community of Ruby. We are increasingly closer by the
day as technology gets more real and more life like with an amplitude
of simplicity that changes the landscape dramatically when making a
decision like this.


There's something to be said for hanging out in coffee shop with a group
of like-minded geeks hacking on projects.

There's even more to be said for hanging out with dislike-minded geeks
who can keep you form getting insulated in some pristine Ruby cocoon
(you avoid the geek version of the Elvis Effect, where no one around you
will tell you how sucky your favorite language or framework is).

My experiences with the post-meeting dinners for Refresh Phoenix and the
Phoenix Ruby group showed me that in-person chatting bandwidth can't be
beat.


--
James Britt

www.ruby-doc.org - Ruby Help & Documentation
www.rubystuff.com - The Ruby Store for Ruby Stuff
www.risingtidesoftware.com - Wicked Cool Coding
 
A

Armin Armbruster

Hi,

can't speak for Australia, never been there.
As far as Canada goes:
I moved to Waterloo, Ontario six years ago and enjoy it here.
Lot's of High-Tech industry around (RIM for example), really excellent
University (UW was the only Canadian University visited by Bill Gates on
a campaign to recrute developers for Microsoft in 2006). Lot's of
startup companies as well. Lot's of insurance companies (if you like
financial software).

In terms of quality of living. Housing (although not cheap and prices
are rising) is much more affordable than Toronto or Vancouver. At the
same time Kitchener-Waterloo is big enough (>300k) to provide lot's of
good restaurants, theaters, sport facilities. And if you really need the
big city experience from time to time, Toronto is only a one hour car
ride away. Also there are 3 international airports within a one hour
drive (Kitchener, Toronto, Hamilton).

The downsides:
- poor public transportation system --> hard to get around without a
car, unless you are a hard-core cyclist, especially in the winter.
- winters are cold and long (on the other hand a nice crisp sunny winter
day can be very enjoyable).
- summers can be hot and humid, although this year has been pretty good
so far.

Just my $0.02.

Armin
 

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