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Domain: joabj.com

Stories and comments across the archive that link to joabj.com.

Stories · 8

  1. Romance and Rebellion In Software Versioning

    Developers · Programming · · posted by timothy · from the one-point-2-slash-b-codename-priapic-porcupine dept. · 86 comments
    joabj writes: Most software releases more or less follow the routine convention of Major.Minor.Bugfix numbering (i.e. Linux 4.2.1). This gives administrators an idea of what updates are major ones and might bring compatibility issues. As Dominic Tarr points out in his essay "Sentimental Versioning," a few projects boldly take on more whimsical schemes for versioning, such as Donald Knuth's use of successive Pi digits to enumerate new updates to TeX, or Node.js's punk-rock careening between major and minor releases. If you break convention, Tarr seems to be arguing, at least do so with panache.

  2. Internet Systems Consortium Seeks Wider Input For BIND 10

    Linux · Networking · · posted by timothy · from the one-bind-to-ring-them-all dept. · 60 comments
    joabj writes "The ISC is seeking some open source magic for the next version of the widely used BIND. Although the BIND is already open source, most of the work thus far done on the DNS server software has come from contractors, the government and Unix vendors. 'The goal is to move away from having BIND a heavily sponsored corporate product,' said BIND 10 manager Shane Kerr. Kerr is hoping that more eyes will equal fewer bugs, and that more users will go ahead and implement the features they've been requesting themselves. BIND 10, due by the end of the year, features a new modular architecture, one designed to circumvent many of the security woes that have bedeviled BIND 9."

  3. New Languages Vs. Old For Parallel Programming

    Developers · Programming · · posted by timothy · from the nothing-new-will-ever-happen dept. · 321 comments
    joabj writes "Getting the most from multicore processors is becoming an increasingly difficult task for programmers. DARPA has commissioned a number of new programming languages, notably X10 and Chapel, written especially for developing programs that can be run across multiple processors, though others see them as too much of a departure to ever gain widespread usage among coders."

  4. Not All Cores Are Created Equal

    Hardware · Intel · · posted by kdawson · from the working-out-the-kinks dept. · 183 comments
    joabj writes "Virginia Tech researchers have found that the performance of programs running on multicore processors can vary from server to server, and even from core to core. Factors such as which core handles interrupts, or which cache holds the needed data can change from run to run. Such resources tend to be allocated arbitrarily now. As a result, program execution times can vary up to 10 percent. The good news is that the VT researchers are working on a library that will recognize inefficient behavior and rearrange things in a more timely fashion." Here is the paper, Asymmetric Interactions in Symmetric Multicore Systems: Analysis, Enhancements and Evaluation (PDF).

  5. DoD Wary of That "Open" Word

    · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the secure-the-bazaar dept. · 165 comments
    joabj writes, "Why is the U.S. Defense Department still reluctant to use open source software, despite assurances from within the DoD itself? Blogging for Government Computer News, I found at a recent D.C. conference that to some extent the roadblock might be with that word 'open'."

  6. Umberto Eco on Paper vs. Electronic Memory

    Tech · Technology · · posted by michael · from the three-sheets-to-the-wind dept. · 290 comments
    joabj writes "Paper was itself a technology at one point, this essay from Umberto Eco, author of "In The Name of the Rose," reminds us. Eco holds forth on the differences between paper and electronic memory. He doesn't come out in favor of either, rather he talks about the advantages each has, in technical terms. Some fascinating ideas here...."

  7. Trouble Ahead for Internet Routing Tables?

    Internet · · posted by ryuzaki0 · from the something-to-think-about dept. · 149 comments
    joabj writes: "This article in Light Reading, a fiber optics news page, claims that the Internet's routing tables are ballooning in size and within a couple of years "equipment won't have enough processor power and memory to handle them." The article draws its conclusions from the dramatic increase in the number of BGP routing tables over the last six years and the predicted need for more IP addresses for all those pervasive computing goodies we've been promised."

  8. The 1st Commercial-Grade All-Optical Switch?

    News · News · · posted by timothy · from the quick-somebody-trademark-"optical-ethernet"! dept. · 73 comments
    joabj writes: "Today's Washington Post trumpeted the delivery of the first-ever commercial-grade optic-switch, by Corvis Corp. I'm not sure how commercially viable a switch the size of a refrigerator can be, though a commercial-grade all-photonic switch is indeed, as the WP points out, a "holy grail" of the optics industry--the missing piece for the 40-80 Gbps throughput for fiber optic cable that the industry is so hungering for these days. (Now, photonic signals must be converted into electrical signals to be switched, then back into light again -- slowing transmission speeds considerably.) Unfortunately neither the article (Free reg. req.) nor Corvis' own Web site explains what the winning technology was. There are a lot of competing ideas out there on how to switch optical signals. Is it MEMs? Liquid crystals? Curious minds want to know ..."

    Initially, this sounds a lot like the optical switch announced by Agilent a little while ago, but with the bonus of being ready "within a few weeks" from workaday life. (Does that mean the equipment reported as delivered is still being installed or set up?) [Updated 11th Oct. 2000 4:05 GMT by timothy:] As a few people have pointed out in comments, that free registration is pretty painless ... since it's not necessary. Better than the other way around! ;)